


To Tell The Truth

by Eiiri



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005), Brokeback Mountain - All Media Types, Brokeback Mountain - Annie Proulx
Genre: Alma deserves better than canon, Alma gets some agency, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, But mostly people don't suck, Complicated Relationships, Divorce, Ennis talks about his feelings, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, I swear this is mostly cute, Internalized Homophobia, Jack is a chatterbox, Jack is a good dad, Jack is a good partner, Jack lives!, Jack's mom is a Good Mom, Jack's mom is pretty much my OC now, L.D. Newsome sucks, M/M, Talking about feelings saves lives, There's just a lot of angst between the cute, Vietnam War mentions, Wyoming geography, ennis is a good dad, era appropriate homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25724044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiiri/pseuds/Eiiri
Summary: Alma can tell there's something bothering her fiancé when he comes home from working for the summer up on Brokeback Mountain.  She asks, and he tells her the truth.That truth, that honesty, changes the course of their lives--and Jack's.  It doesn't turn everything around over night, the world still has certain expectations of them and they all have expectations of themselves, but telling the truth puts them on a path to avoid a lot of misery and end up in a much happier place than lies and secrecy would have landed them.
Relationships: Alma Beers Del Mar/Ennis Del Mar, Ennis Del Mar & Alma Beers, Ennis Del Mar/Jack Twist
Comments: 146
Kudos: 209





	1. The Truth

There was something wrong when Ennis came home. Alma was thrilled to see him for the first time in months, she had missed him something fierce, and she could tell he really was glad to see her, too—but something was wrong. He let go too fast when he hugged her and seemed almost scared to kiss her back when she kissed him. He was never much of one to look at whoever he was talking to, but now he'd hardly look at her at all. It had been more than a week and she'd hardly seen him eat anything and he seemed worn out like he wasn't sleeping well.

Tinfoil-covered plate of cornbread held in the crook of her arm, strap of her sundress threatening to fall off her shoulder, she knocked firmly on the door of the tiny little shack of a house he was living in until they got married and moved in together in November. He didn't answer at first, but she knew he wasn't working today so she knocked again. “Ennis, are you awake?”

The door opened on Ennis, still tired-looking but not like he'd just woken up. “I'm awake. Just wasn't decent….”

“Well, it's just me,” she teased, smiling. She held out the plate. “Made some cornbread, figured I'd bring you some.”

He hesitated then took the plate, mumbling a thank you, and stepped away to put it on the counter.

“Can I come in?” She fixed the strap of her dress.

“Course.”

She stepped in, leaned back on the door to shut it, and watched him a minute as he moved things around and put away a few dishes she wasn't sure were actually clean to clear enough room on the cluttered counter for the cornbread. Why he didn't just put it on the all but empty table was beyond her.

“You want some coffee or somethin'?” he asked, back to her.

“I wouldn't mind coffee, thank you.” She came more into the room and leaned her arms on the back of one of the two mismatched chairs at the table. “Ennis, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I'm fine.” He put the coffee pot on and didn't turn around. “Course I'm fine.”

She bit her lip. “Are you mad at me 'bout somethin'?”

Now he turned. “No. No, a course not. Why'd you think that?”

“You've seemed upset ever since you got back from you job. You won't hardly look at me, or touch me, or anything.” She shrugged. “I can't imagine why you wouldn't tell me what's wrong 'less it's to do with me.”

He stepped forward, propped one knee in the chair she was leaning on, and took her hands. “I'm not upset with you.”

“Then what's wrong?” she asked gently, looking up at him. “Did somethin' happen?”

He looked away in a way that definitely said “yes” even if he didn't want to answer.

She reached up to touch his face. “Ennis, what happened?”

He shook his head and stepped off the chair. “Nothin'.”

“How are we supposed to be married if you won't tell me when things are wrong so I can help?”

He fiddled with getting her a mug and turning off the stove and didn't answer.

“Ennis?”

“I'm not so sure we can be married if I do tell you.”

She stared at the back of his head for a long moment, then took a breath. “Okay, now you _have_ to tell me.”

He exhaled and deflated, his shoulders sagged, head bowed. He turned and set her coffee on the table without looking at her. She made no move to touch it, watched him, waited. The clock opposite the sink ticked deafeningly.

“What happened?” she asked softly.

Eyes on the tabletop, he shook his head.

“Ennis.”

“I don't _know_.” He looked up at her briefly, then back down, shrugged, and shook his head. “I—don't know.”

“Clearly _something_ happened.”

He nodded.

“So, just, do your best to explain.”

“Alma….”

“Try.”

He was still a moment, then he pulled out the other chair and dropped into it, hunched over, staring at his hands clasped between his knees. He took a breath, let it out, then took another. “I,” he began quietly, “I was workin' with another fella this summer and we—there weren't nobody else around—we got to be good friends. He didn't mind me not talkin' so much, I didn't much mind listenin' to him yammer on, we got on good.”

“Mhm,” Alma prompted, coming around to sit in the chair she'd been leaning on, wondering if this fella had come up dead, thinking how that could've happened, and hoping against hope she was wrong.

“Well...” Ennis trailed off, sat quiet, and shrugged. “Like I said, there weren't nobody around.”

“Ennis, I don't know what that's supposed to mean.”

He shook his head again. “I don't know what to tell you.”

“You're scaring me,” she murmured uneasily.

“It just happened.”

“What do you mean 'it just happened?' _What_ happened?”

“We—” he mumbled something inaudible.

She leaned in. “What?”

Ennis was breathing hard like he might be sick. He repeated himself a little louder. “We had sex.”

Alma blinked. “You what?”

“We had sex.” Ennis scrubbed both hands over his face and into his hair.

She stared at him a long while and shook her head. “I don't think I understand what you're sayin.'”

“I told you what happened!” he snapped, standing quick enough it made his chair damn near fall over. She flinched and his flash of frustrated anger fizzled away; he turned unsteadily to lean on the counter and continued in a hoarse whisper. “I dunno what else to tell you.”

It took a moment for her to find the words to ask, “You had...with, with that other fella you were workin' with…?”

He nodded.

She stood slowly and took half a step toward him before stopping and taking a full step back, hugging herself as she did. “Are you, y'know—?”

“ _No_.”

Lips pursed, she nodded, mostly to herself. “But you cheated. With...him.”

On the edge of the counter, Ennis's knuckles went white. He nodded.

“Why?”

“I swear to God, I don't know.” Ennis took a sharp breath, his voice thick. “I just...felt….” He trailed off, shaking his head. A drop of something _plink_ ed hollowly into the sink. The faucet must have been leaking again, because Ennis Del Mar did not cry. Alma had never once in all the years she'd known him seen him cry.

“I'm gonna go home,” Alma said, too even, like it scared her when her mama got. “I think I just need to not see you for a bit. Need to think. I—I'll come back by, Sunday, maybe, that's when you've next got off for sure, right? I'll come back by and I'll let you know what we still gotta work out about the weddin.'”

She didn't wait for him to give any kind of response, just turned on her heel and let herself out.


	2. Nothin's Changed

Sunday morning, Alma went with her parents to church. After the service, her father asked, “Are you coming to brunch with us, sweetheart?”

Alma shook her head and smiled sweetly. “No, thank you, Daddy. I'm gonna go see Ennis—he's off today.”

“Alright. Well, do you need a ride over?”

“No, that's okay. It's not a long walk. Thank you, though.” She hugged her father, then her mother, waved as they pulled out of the parking lot, let her hand drop, took a deep breath, and turned to walk toward Ennis's. Really, it was too long of a walk to be comfortable in her good shoes, but she wanted the time to herself.

She could see as she walked up, Ennis was outside, smoking while he hung up his laundry, frowning back and forth between what was already on the line and what was still in the basket. He looked around at the sound of her footsteps on the gravel drive, put out his cigaret in a tin can at the corner of the house, and nodded to her, wiping his hands on his jeans nervously. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she echoed, stopping just a couple paces away.

“You, uh,” he glanced away, “you look nice.”

“Went to church.” She looked down at her dress and smoothed her skirt, then looked up again and jerked her head toward the house. “Let's talk.”

“Yeah….” He quickly finished hanging the last of his laundry then led the way inside.

They stood across from each other in the little kitchen, quiet for what felt like forever, her with her hands clasped in front of her, him with his arms crossed, staring at a spot on the floor just in front of her shoes while she watched his face.

“What do you want, Ennis?” she finally asked, voice soft and low.

His eyes flicked up and he looked at her searchingly, mouth moving a little like he was looking for words he wasn't gonna find anytime soon.

“I wanna know what you want,” she continued, “given...what happened, if you've changed your mind about things, about me.”

“Nah, no.” He shook his head, gaze dropping to the floor again as he took a shaky breath. “I love you. I wanna marry you.”

“You're sure?”

He nodded firmly and made a point of meeting her eyes. “I never been more sure a anythin' in my life.”

She took a breath and let it out. “Alright then.” She nodded, unclasped her hands, and took a step forward. “Alright. So then, nothin's changed.”

“Nothin,'” he agreed quickly.

“We'll get married just like we planned, and we don't need to talk about this no more.”

He nodded. She crossed the gap between them, lay a hand on his cheek, and leaned up on her toes to kiss him. He kissed back, wrapping his arms around her to hold her close.

They married in November in the little methodist church, just a little ceremony with family—her parents and sister and brother-in-law, his siblings and their spouses and kids. Ennis swore he'd never in his life seen anything more beautiful than Alma in her lace dress.

The next week, they moved into a nice little house way outside of town. By the end of January, she was pregnant and he'd snagged a steady job on the Elwood Ranch nearby. Their daughter—Alma Jr., named after her mama—was born in September in the middle of the night, because, as Ennis knew from working with livestock, babies came whenever the hell they wanted with no regard for anyone and anything. The gruff, gray-haired midwife lay Junior—all squish faced and red and angry, screaming at the world—in Ennis's arms, and he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life. He smiled down at her, feeling like he'd swallowed sunshine, and murmured, “Hey, there, little darlin.'”

Junior grew quick into a happy, wiggly little thing, then a wild whirlwind of a toddler, blond and curly-haired like her daddy. The Elwood place went under just as Alma fell pregnant again. They moved into town, found an apartment over the laundromat, Ennis got a job with the highway crew for weekdays and went out weekend mornings to work on the Rafter B ranch in exchange for them giving his horses a place to stay. Jennifer-Francine was born in March and Junior wouldn't let the new baby out of her sight, took to calling her sister Jenny because the whole thing was too much for her to pronounce at only two and a half years old. It became habit for Ennis to get home at night, and settle into the creaking couch springs with Junior in his lap and Jenny in hers, a bottle for the baby, sippy cup for the big sister, and a beer for dad, all dozing to the sounds of the radio while they drank. Alma'd lean on the doorframe from the kitchen, watching her family all asleep cuddled together, smiling to herself. She had picked a good one—Ennis could be stubborn, sure, hard headed and thick headed by turns, but he was sweet to her and he was a good dad, he loved their girls so much, and it made her feel warm to see.

One Saturday that June, Ennis came in from outside in the middle of Alma cooking lunch and went to wash his hands. She stepped easily out of his way without interrupting what she was doing and asked, “Hey, Ennis—you know somebody name a Jack?”

For a second, Ennis forgot how to breathe and he let the water run too long while he figured it out again. “Uh, yeah.” He smacked the faucet off, shook the water off his hands. “Why?”

She nodded toward the mail on the counter while she took a pan off the stove. “You got a postcard come general delivery.”

Ennis thumbed through the mail, found the picture postcard, and stared at it, the image of the mountain on one side, the loose looping handwriting on the other calling him _friend_.

“He somebody you cowboyed with?” Alma asked curiously, coming up at his elbow.

Ennis nodded. “Yeah.” He took a breath, let it out, and put the card picture side up on the counter. “He, uh, we,” he glanced at her, “we worked together one time.” He hesitated, seriously considering just, not saying anything else, leaving it at that, but he could feel her looking at him. He tapped a finger on the photo then dropped the rest of the mail on top of it. “Summer 'fore we got married, up on Brokeback Mountain. Herdin' sheep.”

All at once he felt the air go out of the room as Alma stilled next to him.

“Oh.” A heartbeat later she nudged him gently aside with her hip, pulled the postcard from the bottom of the stack, and flipped it over to read it. She held it a long time, must've read it a few times over to be looking at it that long. He chewed his tongue, waiting for...he wasn't sure what.

“Well,” she said finally, “I figure you'd best write him back. Be rude not to, wouldn't it?”

It took a second for that to filter through Ennis's nerves to his brain. “Wh—yeah, guess it would, yeah. I, uh, I'll do that, then.” He looked at her. “What should I tell him?”

She shrugged and turned away quickly to finish up lunch. “He's your friend. Tell him whatever you want.”

He hummed a short agreement. They hardly talked the whole time they ate, but that just meant Junior was free to regale them both with her advice on how to rodeo a unicorn—got to be careful of the horn, you see.

After the meal, Ennis walked a block over to the post office, got himself the cheapest, plainest post card there was, addressed it to the Childress, Texas address Jack had sent his card from, then agonized over his response for a quarter hour with several false starts before writing two words: _Sure thing_.


	3. She Knows

The day Jack was supposed to show up, Ennis was jumping at every noise like an easily spooked horse, except instead of running away from the noises he was running to the window, stepping around the girls playing on the living room floor, little Jenny sprawled on her blanket, Junior humming and making her laugh. Alma was quiet, crocheting while she watched him cross to the window every few minutes. Her silence only made him antsier.

Hours passed.

Tires crunched, turning from the street into the parking lot behind the laundromat. For maybe the thousandth time, Ennis leapt off the couch to look outside. It was a two-tone truck he'd never seen before, but he could see just enough through the reflection of the wide Wyoming sky in the windshield to kick up his heart rate and send him running out the door. He caught himself against the rail on the landing and felt a kind of electric warmth bubble up somewhere under his ribs as he watched the familiar stocky frame fold itself out of the unfamiliar truck. A smile broke its way across his face and he laughed, “Jack Fuckin' Twist,” before bounding down the stairs.

Jack smiled up at him, striding across the parking lot to meet him, and grabbed him into a tight hug that Ennis returned just as hard, feeling the firm muscle of his shoulders, inhaling the smells of cigarets and whiskey and leather and the ghost of cold mountain air. He exhaled, breathing the words, “Hey there, darlin.'”

“Hey,” Jack echoed, pulling back just enough to look at Ennis, see his face, those sharp grey-blue eyes scanning quickly over him like he was trying to memorize Ennis, or else convince himself Ennis was real. Something in those eyes hit Ennis like a shot, made him grab Jack by the shirt and haul him over behind the stairs out of sight to kiss him, four years of missing and wanting he hadn't let himself feel hitting him all at once. Teeth caught, noses crushed, fingers scrabbled, stubble scraped, lungs burned. Neither of them saw or heard Alma step out onto the landing then stop still like a rabbit, one hand on the half open storm door. They didn't notice her quiet retreat, either.

Ennis dragged himself off of Jack, stepped back with his head down, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, fixed his shirt where it'd come untucked. Jack rubbed at his nose, stooped to pick up his hat where it'd been knocked to the ground, and, still trying to get his breath, he caught Ennis's eye for just a second before Ennis glanced back up at the door of his apartment like he was startled to find it was there.

“We, uh,” he mumbled with a nod toward the apartment.

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Yeah.”

Ennis led the way up the stairs and let them in. Alma turned toward them as they came into the kitchen, her expression a particular kind of neutral that made Ennis's heart fall off the high bright peak it had climbed to and sink down into a lump. He swallowed past it. “Alma, this here's Jack. Jack, my wife,” he tripped a little on the word, “Alma.”

Jack nodded tightly and flashed a quick smile. “Nice to meetcha, ma'am.”

“Same to ya,” Alma said softly, eyeing Jack appraisingly.

In the next room, Jenny started squalling. Jack looked quickly to Ennis while Alma went to see what was wrong. “You got a kid?”

Ennis nodded. “Two girls.”

Junior ran in and hugged her daddy's legs; Alma came back bouncing Jenny in her arms. Ennis patted his daughter's head.

“I got a boy,” Jack said, grinning a little as he glanced down at Junior. “Eight months old. Married the prettiest little girl down in Childress.”

“You know, we oughta go to dinner,” Alma said suddenly.

“I, ih, I fi—” Ennis began, “I figured me an' Jack'd just—”

“Just go get drunk,” Alma finished for him with a sigh, and shifted how she was holding Jenny. “But we haven't really had supper, and,” she looked to Jack, “you've had a long drive, haven't you? You oughta eat, somethin.'”

“The girls, though,” Ennis said, gently detaching Junior from his jeans.

“I'll call my sister,” Alma said easily, then added for Jack, “she lives just across town. If it comes down to it, we can take the girls with us, we'd just have to go to the diner instead a the steak place.” She turned to pick up the phone, leaving no room for argument.

Ennis let out a long breath, shook his head, and picked up Junior who was tugging on his jeans again. Jack shrugged a little. “We can go for a drink after dinner,” he said reasonably. “Hold it better with food in our bellies, too.”

“Yeah….”

They gave Jack directions to the one nice restaurant in town, went to leave the girls with their aunt, then doubled back. Stopped at the traffic light just before the turn in for the steakhouse, Ennis bounced his thumb against the steering wheel. “What are you tryin' at?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Alma said, looking out the window. “Your friend is in town, we're goin' out to dinner with him like grown ups, because it's polite, so you two can catch up and I can meet him proper.”

Ennis chewed his tongue. The light changed, he put the truck in gear, and pulled into the lot to park at the opposite end of the row from Jack's two-tone.

Jack was waiting for them in the airlock. They got a table, Ennis and Alma sitting on the one side, Jack on the other.

“So,” Alma began, reaching for her water glass and breaking the silence left when the waitress walked away, “how exactly do you know Ennis?”

“He didn't tell you?” Jack asked, glancing briefly at Ennis but mostly keeping his gaze on Alma.

She shook her head. “I know you worked together a few summers ago, but,” she smiled politely and patted Ennis's arm, “that was right before we got married and whatever little bit of story tellin' he mighta done got swept away by that.”

“Right, right, I understand that.” Jack glanced at Ennis again. He was nibbling on a crust of bread and staring at a bead of condensation working its way down the side of his glass. “Well,” Jack continued, “we both signed up for Farm and Ranch Employment, y'know, and happened to get put on the same sheep operation up in the mountains north a Signal.”

“Mhm?” she prompted, watching him intently.

“Yeah, and, uh, it's three, four months up there with the sheep, not much choice but to get to know whoever you're with.” Jack laughed a little and sipped his beer. “That was my second summer workin' up there, actually, and the fella I worked with before Ennis, me an' him never got along. Sorta person who thinks their way a doin' things is the only right way and won't shut up about it. It's near a miracle I never pushed him off the mountain, said the horses did it.”

Ennis looked up at him at that—Jack had never mentioned his previous colleague beyond the fact he existed.

One side of Alma's mouth twisted up into an odd sort of smile. “That so?”

Jack nodded. “Ennis is good company, though. Good to work with.” Jack looked at him. “Little hard to hold a conversation with, sometimes, though.”

Alma looked over at him. “Don't you got nothin' to say to your friend, Ennis?”

Ennis shrugged. “You both know I'm not much a talker,” he mumbled. “No point forcin' it, 'specially since I know Jack'n talk 'nough for all a us.”

Jack ducked his head down, then looked up at the ceiling almost like he was praying. “He's not wrong. Most a the trouble I ever got into in school was for not shuttin' up.” Jack let out a breath and looked back at Alma. “But yeah, we got to be friends up there, even if I only heard about five words outa him a day for the first couple weeks. Once he started talkin' in full sentences, I tried to get a laugh outa him, makin' a show a pretendin' to be up on a bull—and it worked, if only because I tripped over somethin' and fell, took half our kitchen stuff with me, and offended all the horses.”

Ennis snorted at the memory. Alma pressed her lips into a line and rolled her eyes.

Their food arrived. A couple bites in, Jack said, “Y'know, Ennis told me he was marryin' ya, but he never did tell me how the two a you met.”

Alma's eyebrows quirked up in surprise. “He helped my daddy get his car out of the snow once, and my mama wouldn't let him leave without givin' him a meal as thanks. Not long after that, I had a dance comin' up and no one to go with, so I think my daddy went and _informed_ Ennis he'd be takin' me. I don't think I'd ever seen anyone more put out to be at a party.” She looked over at Ennis fondly. “But I guess I found it kinda charming that he didn't complain despite bein' such a grump, and he's sweet to me.” She took a deep breath. Ennis looked away from her. She turned quickly back to Jack. “How'd you meet your wife?”

Jack half choked on a bite of potato, drank some beer to clear it. “Rodeo. I spent a while bull ridin'—didn't find no money in it, nearly starved to death, it's not like it was back in my daddy's day, it's not enough to just be tough and know your way around stock, these guys now who are able to win and make a livin' at it, they're professional athletes, went to school for it and all that. Lureen, she's like them, barrel racing, though. Did it since she was little and she's _amazing_ at it. Her hat came off as she was finishin' up a run and I was lucky enough to be able to grab it and give it back to her.”

“Isn't that sweet,” Alma said. “Like somethin' out of a movie.”

The entire rest of the meal went about the same, Alma asking Jack about his life, Jack answering and sometimes asking similar questions back, Ennis listening without joining in, eyes on his food. Jack kept watching him, trying not to worry about how quiet he was being because this was _Ennis_ and he knew Ennis was quiet, he just didn't remember him being quite _this_ quiet. Then again, he'd never really seen Ennis out in public, and he had been almost this quiet at that bar in Signal when they'd first met. Couple times, Jack brought up some of what he knew about Ennis's family, asking after his siblings, asking if his daughters knew their cousins, him and Lureen were both only children so Bobby didn't have any—but Ennis just shrugged or shook his head and Alma wound up answering for him.

Ennis finally did talk when, at the end of the meal with their leftovers packed up to go home with Alma, Jack told the waitress one check, and to bring it to him.

“Jack, you don't gotta do that.”

“No, but I can, and I want to.” He leaned one elbow on the table. “I am glad to be here, you took the day off on account a me, it's the least I can do.”

When they got up to leave, Alma handed Ennis the leftovers. “Help me out with these?”

“Mhm,” he nodded, and followed her to their truck while Jack went to wait at his own.

Alma got the driver's side door open, put the food over on the seat without any trouble, lay her hands on Ennis's chest, and looked up at him. For a second she was quiet, reading his face, then, calm as anything, she said, “We should get a divorce.”

Ennis felt his heart stop.

“You go tonight, get drunk, stay out, I don't care.” She inhaled and nodded, mostly to herself. “We'll talk about it whenever you get back.” She started to step away, changed her mind, leaned up quickly to kiss his cheek, then got in the truck and drove off, leaving him standing stunned still and forgetting how to breathe next to the broken concrete parking marker.

Eventually, Ennis pulled himself together enough to trudge over to Jack's truck and get in. Jack eyed him. “Ennis…?”

“There's a, uh, liquor store, 'bout a block over that way,” Ennis said, scrubbing his knuckles across his mouth and pointing down the street. “We can pick som'in' up and go, I 'unno, somewhere.”

They stopped by the store, Jack went in real quick, came back with a pack of beer and a bottle of whiskey, then they went and wound up at the shitty little Motel Siesta off the main road out of town.

The door closed behind them, Ennis smacked the security latch into place, Jack cracked open a beer with his keys and took a sip, Ennis took the bottle out of his hand, took a swig, set it aside where it wobbled on the table, pushed Jack up against the wall and kissed him rough. Jack kissed back, fingers going at his own buttons, then Ennis's belt, then up to dig into his curls. Ennis mouthed along Jack's jaw, hands finding their way under Jack's now-open shirt. Jack breathed his name.

Ennis tore himself away, snatched up the beer, leaned heavy on the table, and drank. Jack came and rubbed a hand over his back, tried to lean on him, kiss his shoulder—Ennis shrugged him off cold.

Jack stepped back slowly. After a minute, he asked, “Ennis, are you alright?”

“No,” Ennis barked into his beer, then tipped it back again.

Jack bit his lip and pulled his shirt closed over his chest. “...should I not a come?”

“Prob'ly not,” Ennis muttered. “But you're here so there's that.” He finished the beer, turned to look at Jack, then looked away quick. He took a breath, then another, dropped his fist heavy on the table, and said, “Alma told me, just now leavin' dinner, we oughta get divorced.”

“Oh, Ennis….” Something went out of Jack's face and he trailed off. “I didn't—”

“She knows, Jack.” Ennis tapped his nails anxiously on the tabletop. “About us, she knows.”

“ _What?_ ” Jack took a step, letting his shirt fall back open. “How did she—?”

“I _told_ her.”

“Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because she asked me, Jack.” He shoved away from the table and sank onto the corner of the bed. “End a that summer when I headed home,” he shook his head, “I wasn't alright. You—sonofabitch, you'd gotten to me and screwed me up some kinda way. Walkin' away from that office after watchin' you drive off, I, swear to god, I felt like somebody was tryin' to yank my guts out through my ribs. Tried to puke but there weren't nothin' to bring up, and I weren't much better by the time I got home.” He rubbed a hand over his face, took an unsteady breath. “Alma, she's not stupid, she knew there was somethin' wrong, and she asked, and I _told her_. We decided to go ahead and get married, and we ain't talked about _this_ ,” he spat, gesturing between himself and Jack, “not a word in four fuckin' years, everythin's been normal, til that postcard shows up. Even then, neither a us really said nothin', just enough for me to know she understood who you are.”

Jack knelt on the matted carpet, lay a careful hand on Ennis's knee, and looked up at him, quiet. “You didn't have to tell me I could come.”

Ennis shrugged, shook his head, looked away, mumbled, “Wanted ya to.”

Jack hummed, touched Ennis's cheek, stood, grabbed the bottle of whiskey, kicked off his boots, and hopped onto the bed so he was sitting halfway behind Ennis, then wrapped his arms around him, pulled him to lean against his chest, and nuzzled the edge of his hair to murmur into his neck, “Well, like you said, I'm here. There's no takin' back what's already happened tonight or what happened four years ago—we're at where we're at.”

Ennis closed his eyes and shook his head, but leaned back on Jack's shoulder and laced their fingers together around the bottle. He opened his eyes to stare at the plaster-cracked ceiling, feeling Jack's breathing, his heartbeat, the solid warmth of him. His throat burned, so he cracked open the whiskey and took a long swallow to give it an excuse.

After a minute he shrugged Jack off again to toss the bottle onto the nightstand, then kicked off his own boots, shoved Jack down on the mattress, and picked up where they'd left off.

Later—no telling when, they'd knocked the clock off the nightstand at some point and it was somewhere between the furniture and the wall—they lay tangled in the sheets, their clothes scattered, sharing a cigaret, Jack halfway propped up on a pillow, holding Ennis to his chest again.

Ennis exhaled a long breath of smoke. “What am I gonna do?”

“Well,” Jack lifted his cheek off Ennis's head so as not to singe his hair while he took a drag on the cigaret, then dropped it while he blew out the smoke, “get divorced, I guess. If that's what she's decided she wants, I don't imagine there's any stopping her.”

“I mean after that.”

Jack shrugged. “Whatever you want.” He paused, nuzzled Ennis's hair, shrugged again. “Could maybe do somethin' with me, get a place, I dunno, have a little cow and calf operation.”

Ennis shook his head. “We can't do that. 'Sides, you got your own life down in Texas, your wife and baby, you—you can't just leave all that.”

Jack sighed. “Tell you the truth? It's not much of a life I got. Don't get me wrong, I really do care about Lureen, she's probably my best friend, and I love my son more than anything—you know how it is to look at your kid and just be amazed that they're real and so perfect and, holy fuck, you had anything to do with makin' 'em.”

“Yeah,” Ennis agreed softly, “I do.”

“Yeah.” Jack let himself slide sideways off the pillow so he was laying flat, dragging Ennis with him. “But I ain't got any friends down there other than Lureen—all her friends, everyone we work with, they all come from money, most of 'em went to college, and they all look at me and see a fuckup hick, leaching of his well-to-do wife and her family. They treat me like dirt, laugh at my back when they think I can't hear. I hate my job. Apparently I'm a good salesman, but it makes me feel like a goddamn swindler, and my father-in-law is my boss and no matter how good I am, I will never be good enough for him, or, in his eyes, good enough for his daughter. He hates my guts, good as told me he'd fuckin' pay me to get lost. Told me a few times, actually. And Lureen...she can't see it, I tried to tell her a couple times how bad it is, but she figures I'm being too sensitive or it's all in my head, because I'm so _likable_ there's no way it's that bad.

“I really wouldn't be too sad to leave,” Jack continued, thoughtfully morose as he took another drag on what little was left of their cigaret. “I don't like that it would hurt her, but she'd be okay, she really don't need me. Keeps me around cuz she likes me, like I'm a dog or some shit. And cuz it'd look bad if she had a baby and no husband, but if I leave her, well, she's the good guy. As long as I could still be part a Bobby's life, I—I'd be okay. And I'm pretty sure she'd allow me that. So I'd be okay. If I was with you, I'd be more than okay.”

Ennis put out the stub of the cigaret, sighed, and shook his head. “'m real sorry you ain't happy, but, we _can't_ , Jack.”

“Why not?” Jack asked, just barely not sounding accusatory.

“Two guys livin' together? There's no way.” Ennis hauled himself up to sit, grabbed his lighter and another cigaret. “It's just asking for trouble. This _thing_ grabs hold of us at the wrong time, wrong place,” he lit the cigaret and shook his head, “we're dead. Plain and simple.”

Jack propped himself up on his elbow. “I think we'd manage.”

“It's not safe,” Ennis said more firmly. “I seen what happens when guys try an' do what you're sayin.' They end up dead in a drainage ditch, beat so bad their skin looks like burnt tomatoes, drug 'round by their dick til it pulled off. I ain't gonna end up like that.”

Jack sat the rest of the way up. “Whadaya mean, you seen that?”

Ennis huffed out smoke. “It was one a my neighbors down home. These fellas, Earl and Rich, were ranched up together ever since I can remember. Pair a tough old birds, but joke a the town. Earl turned up dead one day when I was maybe nine, my old man made sure me an' my brother saw. He had a hand in it for all I know.”

“Ennis look at me,” Jack said, serious. Ennis did, and Jack took his face in his hand. “Your daddy had no business makin' you see that, and things don't gotta be like that. People can be awful, and people will go and kill eachother over anything—I known enough guys rodeoin' who'd been military, or lost folks to war an' murder to know that better than I'd like. But despite all that, most folks don't turn up murdered, now do they?”

Ennis looked down, shook his head. Jack pulled him down to lay with him again. “I'm not sayin' you _have_ to come live with me or nothin,'” he took Ennis's cigaret, “I'm just sayin' _we can_ do that, and I'd sure like to.”

“Maybe,” Ennis mumbled. He turned in Jack's arms to curl against his chest and closed his eyes. “We'll see.”


	4. We Both Knew

In the morning, Jack and Ennis woke up less hungover than they might've, cleaned up, checked out, got a cheap breakfast at the diner, and drove back to the laundromat.

Parked in the lot next to his own truck, Ennis looked up at his apartment with a growing sense of dread and sighed. “I don't wanna go up there.”

Jack patted his arm and gave it a quick squeeze. “I'd offer to come up with ya but I really don't think that'd help.”

“No, it would not,” Ennis agreed without tearing his gaze away from the apartment.

“Well, you got my address, my phone number,” Jack said softly, keeping his eyes on the front door, too. “We'll keep in touch this time.”

“Yeah.”

“You lemme know how things go, whatever happens, whatever you need from me, I'm here. You lemme know.”

Ennis nodded, clapped Jack's shoulder, got out, and went up the stairs. He lingered on the landing to watch Jack drive off, raised one hand in a wave goodbye he wasn't sure Jack could even see, took a breath, and let himself in to his own home.

Alma was up, waiting for him at the kitchen table in her nightdress and housecoat, hair unbrushed, eyes red, cup of coffee between her hands it didn't look like she'd had more than maybe a single sip from.

“Hey, Ennis,” she said without turning from the little window by the table she was staring at more than out of.

“Hey.” He looked around—anywhere but at her. “Where, uh, where's the girls?”

“Still with my sister.” She rotated her mug in her fingers. “I asked if she'd mind keepin' 'em overnight and she said sure.”

He nodded, staring through the doorway into the livingroom.

“You have a good visit?”

“I dunno what you want me to say to that, Alma,” he snapped, finally looking around at her. “'Specially after what you said to me last night. Whataya wanna hear, huh?” He stepped toward her. “That, no, it was awful and I wish I'd never seen 'im? Or that that, yeah, we had a _real_ good visit, stayed up all damn night, talkin' and laughin'? Does it matter either way?”

“Sit down, Ennis,” she ordered softly, voice even and cold.

He did.

For a long, long time, neither of them said anything. She dropped her head into her hands. When she looked back up, her eyes were wet and she shook her head slowly. “I never shoulda married you, I shoulda known better.”

“Now you wait just a minute,” he growled shakily. “That wasn't just your choice. I married you, because I love you.” He choked a little on the word. “I screwed up _once,_ ” he smacked the table, “but it was a one-off thing I never even went lookin' for, and in four years I—you know there hasn't been _nothin_ ' else. Then that postcard came and I didn't know _what_ to do with that but _you_ told me to write him back.”

“I told you to tell him whatever you wanted,” she hissed. “ _You_ invited him 'round, you wanted to see him. That told me plenty. Then he got here, and you—I saw you kissin' him, Ennis.”

He bristled but she continued without pause.

“Kissin' him like he's air and you were drownin.' Then, all dinner—you must be able to see how he looks at you.” She sank back in her chair. “I've already lost you. I can see that even if you can't. And I don't want to sit here, goin' along fakin' it like we're _fine_ , just waiting for you to figure it out your own self and leave.”

Ennis balled his fists, breathing hard like he'd just been in a fight, and stared at a spot on the window.

“And this isn't the only thing,” she continued, shaking her head slowly. “It's just the thing that makes me know there's no savin' this. And if we try, we're just gonna hate each other in the end. I don't want that.”

“I...” Ennis choked on his words, leaned his elbows on the table, bowed his head, and took a breath. “I don't want that either.”

~*~

Alma and Ennis sat at the little table in the kitchen for a long time, working out what they were going to do, at least right now. The legal details had to wait until there were lawyers.

Eventually, Alma got dressed and made her way across town to pick up the girls from their aunt's. She sat a moment in the driveway with the engine off, gathering herself before she strode up to the porch and knocked.

It took a minute for Barbara to get to the door, yelling over her shoulder as she opened it to her son not to _touch_ the kettle. “Hey, Alma—” She stopped mid-sentence as she took in her sister's face. “Honey, are you alright? You look like you've been crying.”

Alma nodded, then shook her head, then blinked up at the paint-peeling rafters of the porch. “I'm leavin' Ennis.”

“Come in, c'mere.” Barbara put an arm around Alma's shoulders and guided her inside. “Stevie,” she said to her son as she prodded Alma toward the couch, “why don't you take Junior out to play on the swings?” Then she added to Alma, “I've got Jenny down for a nap. What happened?”

Alma gave Junior a little smile and patted her head encouragingly while her cousin led her by the hand out to the back yard. She waited for the screen door to rattle closed, dropped her face into her hands for a moment, took a breath, and looked up at her sister with a helpless shrug. “Nothing. Nothing happened, not really. There's just...some things, some differences in what we want outa life, that we can't make work. And I sorta knew before we got married, but we never really talked about it, and we should have, and I thought it wouldn't be a problem, but it is, and I never should have married him—I love him but I never should have married him. His, an old friend of his came through, you know, yesterday, and seeing them, and talkin' to him, I realized, I realized—”

“You realized he's not the man you thought he was?” Barbara offered gently, taking one hand from where she was holding Alma's in her lap to brush a bit of hair out of her little sister's face.

Alma shook her head slowly. “No,” she said softly, “no, he's the same person as always, and I knew when I married him, I just realized...I need him to be somebody else, but he's never gonna be.”

Barbara pulled her into a hug, rubbed her back, and sighed. “I'm so sorry, hon.”

“He needs me to be somebody else, too,” Alma said, muffled into her sister's shoulder. “He needs somebody who'll go live in the middle of goddamn nowhere with a bunch of cows with him 'cause that's where he's comfortable, but that isn't me, that's never gonna be me, I need _people_ , and I can't even be mad at him because we were _both_ wrong.”

“Of _course_ you can be mad at him,” Barbara corrected sharply, holding Alma at arms length to look in her face. “If you're mad at him, you're mad at him. It doesn't have to be all his fault for you to be mad at him.”

“We both knew.” Alma scrubbed a hand across her eyes. “We saw, and we _almost_ didn't get married, but I decided to go ahead. I had the chance to not end up here, but I decided to ignore it. I'm more mad at me than I am at him.”

Barbara pursed her lips, studied Alma a moment, then pulled her back into a hug and let her cry.

“You let me know what you need from me,” Barbara said, cheek against her sister's hair. “If you need me to take the girls any time, if you need a place to stay, help moving, help getting a job, anything. I'm here, and if Tucker's got a problem with that, well, who needs husbands anyway?”

Alma snorted a wet kind of laugh into her sister's shirt despite herself.


	5. Jack's Vigilance

Driving away from the laundromat in Riverton, it was a struggle for Jack to keep his eyes on the road and not just watch in the review as Ennis stood on the landing and didn't go inside. Watching him leave.

The laundromat slipped out of sight. Jack adjusted his grip on the wheel. It was not quiet in the truck with the engine noise, the road noise, the low roar of the Wyoming wind, but that all faded into a background nothing that left Jack's wandering thoughts unignorably loud.

His back was sore and the drive ahead of him was not going to improve that. His shirt smelled faintly of Ennis, but mostly of Ennis's cigarets, a different brand than his own. Ennis, who he'd left standing on the landing with nowhere to go but in to his wife, who knew the truth and was leaving him, because of Jack.

He cut the radio on.

An hour down the road, having not actually heard a single lyric of any of the songs that'd played, he cut it off again and resigned himself to spending the next thirteen-odd hours in his own head.

It was past one in the morning when Jack pulled into his own driveway and almost two before he actually went in the front door. He dropped his keys next to Lureen's purse on the mail table as usual along with the wedding ring he hadn't worn in two days, went to dump his duffle in the laundry room, emptied the coins in his pocket into the old cider jug on the shelf above the dryer, used the bathroom in the guest bath, then leaned hard on the sink, all without turning any lights on.

He was tired.

He really didn't want to go to bed.

So, instead, he carefully, quietly crept into the nursery to check on his son. Bobby was asleep, flat on his back, head lolling to one side, little hands balled into fists. Jack smiled down at him, reached into the crib to gently brush his fingers through Bobby's fine dark curls, then had to turn away because he was either about to cry or be sick.

He gathered himself in the kitchen over a glass of whiskey then went to bed, careful not to wake Lureen.

She stirred anyway, rolling over slightly with a groggy sound at his weight shifting the mattress.

“Mm, Jack…?”

“Yeah. Go back to sleep.”

She rolled the rest of the way to face him and cuddled against his back.

“Wha' time is it?”

“'Bout two-thirty.”

“Long drive.”

“Mhm” He shut his eyes.

“You have a good trip?”

“Mhm.”

“Everything go well with that vender up in Caster?”

“Sure did.”

“You get to see that friend a yours?”

“Yeah.”

She inhaled to ask something else.

“Lureen, I'm tired. Go back to sleep, lemme get some sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”

“Mkay.” She kissed the back of his shoulder and settled back down to sleep.

He let out a breath, watched a minute tick by on the faint glow-in-the-dark hands of his bedside clock, then closed his eyes again and tried to trick his brain into shutting up long enough for him to fall asleep. Eventually, exhaustion won out.

They did talk the next day, but only about the business side of his trip. Lureen was glad Jack'd been able to see his old buddy, but that was as far as she seemed to care. No one else gave a shit at all. As far as Lureen's father was concerned, any time Jack spent on personal visits was time wasted. Course, as far as L.D. was concerned, everything about Jack was a waste. Fuck him.

For the next month, Jack made sure to get the mail every day soon as it came or soon as he got home, whichever came second, and he jumped to answer the phone every time it rang even though, unless it was somebody selling shit or a wrong number, it was always for Lureen.

By August, Jack had stopped expecting to hear from Ennis, but he hadn't stopped hoping—or stopped feeling bad for hoping every time he looked at his son or his wife holding him.

Bobby turned a year old in October. Lureen dressed him up like a cow for Halloween, sent Jack out in his old rodeo spurs to carry him door to door for candy he was too young to eat while she stayed home in the black dress she'd worn to her grandfather's funeral and a witch hat to give out candy in between glasses of wine and gossip with some of the other women on the block.

Jack started to figure Alma had changed her mind, somehow she and Ennis had patched things over. She'd looked past it before, of course she could again.

Or maybe Jack had dreamt that whole trip to Riverton. Five months on, all Jack's shirts only ever smelled like his own cigarets—and Lureen's perfume and her favorite wash powder. He'd lost the motel receipt. There was nothing left to prove he'd ever gone to Riverton except for two missing days of time and an extra hundred and twenty miles on his truck, but that had quickly been swept away by all the days and miles since.

It would be easy to think Ennis himself had been some kind of dream if it weren't for a couple of secrets that reminded Jack he was real.

But Jack had been here before, and he was older this time and a little less romantic and a lot less stupid, so, real or not, he knew the best thing to do was let the whole thing fade away and get on with his life.

And he did.

Until the week after Christmas, just before New Years, when a card came addressed just to him with a return address in the tiny town of Hudson Wyoming.

Inside, under the generic holiday greeting, it read:

_Jack,_

_Sorry this is late. Been busy, had to move for work._

_Wanted to make sure you had the new address._

_Hope your Christmas was good._

_—Ennis_

Jack sank into one of the white leather chairs in the living room, hand over his mouth, re-reading the card as if it would say more if he just kept trying.

Next day that the mail was running he sent a card back, thanking Ennis, wishing him well, and reminding him to call or write anytime for any reason, Jack wanted to hear from him.

And so resumed Jack's vigilance over the mailbox and the phone—the accompanying guilt, though, failed to come back as strong.


	6. Glad to Talk to You

Another several weeks passed with nothing, then, one early morning near Valentines, Jack was up with Bobby, who was miserable with a cold, trying to get him settled back to sleep, when the phone rang. Jack cursed quietly, then cringed—he was really making an effort not to swear around Bobby especially since he was starting to actually talk now—and hurried to the living room to pick up.

“Hello?” he said, jugging phone, baby, and snot rag best he could while Bobby squirmed and objected.

“Hey,” the voice on the other end breathed with audible nervousness, “Jack?”

Jack smiled so hard it hurt. Even never having heard it over the phone before, he knew that voice. “Hey, Ennis.”

“Is, uh, is now a good time? I can hear—”

“It's five in the morning and my kid is leaking goo from just about everything goo can come out of, so, no, it's not a good time, but I can talk,” Jack cut in, wiping Bobby's nose as he spoke. “I'm glad to hear your voice.”

Ennis made some kind of half-choked little sound that came through mostly as static. “I can let you go, I don't have enough change on me for a long call anyway.”

“Read me the number.” Jack sat on the end of the sofa, settled Bobby in his lap, and pinched the phone against his shoulder so his hands were free enough to grab the notepad from the table by the phone. “I'll call you back.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure,” Jack snapped, setting Bobby off again. “Sorry, I'm sorry. Shhsh. Ennis, read me the number.”

He did, they hung up, and Jack called back.

“So,” Jack began, sinking down the couch so he could lean Bobby more comfortably against his chest, “you moved.”

“Yeah,” Ennis agreed. There was a little too long of a silence, then he continued, “Uh, Alma'd moved in with her sister an' took the girls with her an', y'know, that apartment's too much for just me, wasn't worth payin' the rent on it.”

“I hear that.”

When Ennis didn't say anything else, Jack prompted, “You two did get divorced, then?”

“Yeah.” Ennis's sigh was a burst of static. “We did.”

“Sure sorry to hear that, friend,” Jack lied. Well, half lied. At least, it felt like a lie. He really was sorry, though.

Ennis made a non-committal sort of sound.

Bobby sneezed directly onto Jack's nightshirt and started crying again. Jack looked up at the ceiling in prayer briefly before wiping up the snot and attempting to soothe Bobby again.

“Hey, Ennis?”

“Hm?”

“You got kids, you know how to make a baby stop...being goo-y?”

“No, I, uh, Alma's the one that usually deals with sorta thing,” Ennis mumbled apologetically.

“Was worth a shot.” Jack sighed. His shirt needed to be washed anyway.

“You sure I don't need to let you go?”

“I mean, it's not like I can do mucha anythin'. I can sit and wipe snot off my kid's face just as well next to the phone as anywhere else in the house, and at this point I don't think I'm getting' back to bed anyway. You got me as long as you got time for.”

“Ain't got real long,” Ennis said. “Gotta head to work in a bit. I worked late last night so the boss let me have some time this mornin' but I woke up same time anyway, figured I'd call you.”

“'Preciate it.” Jack switched the phone to his other ear. “What're you doin'? Cattle?”

“Yup.”

“That better or worse than sheep?”

“Sheep are stupider, but cows are more trouble.”

Jack chuckled a little. “Hey, when d'you next have some time off? We oughta go huntin or fishin' or somethin'.”

Ennis blew out a breath that crackled over the phone. “I dunno, Easter, maybe? This place is real short-handed, they can afford an hour or two here an' there but it'd be hard for me to get more than that, and I'm new enough still I don't wanna ask for too much. I need this job, court's got me payin' child support, two-hundred and fifty dollars every month.”

“Damn.” Jack rubbed Bobby's back as he started fussing again, his own heart sinking. “I understand, a course, if you can't get time. It was just a thought.”

“I, uh, I'll ask. About Easter. Write and let you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, do that.”

“I will,” Ennis said firmly. “Should probably head on to work now though.”

“Okay. I'm probably takin' the day off on account a Bobby, but you get goin. Keep warm, I know it's colder than anything up there this time a year.”

“Yeah, it's cold as fuck but I'm okay. Don't feel it much.”

“Course you don't.” Jack rolled his eyes. “And, hey—I'm _really_ glad to talk to you, Ennis.”

Ennis was quiet a bit, then, “'M glad to talk you too.”

He hung up. Jack let out a long breath, reached around awkwardly to put the phone back in its cradle, stared out the window at the feebly lightening sky, then looked down at his son and wiped away a snot bubble.

Bobby fell asleep against his chest, so Jack didn't dare move. He was dozing there on the sofa when Lureen's alarm went off in the bedroom, rousing him and, unfortunately, Bobby. With a groan, Jack got to his feet, shushing Bobby as he did, and made his way down the hall to the nursery—along with everything else he had to be miserable about today, Bobby now needed a clean diaper.

“There ya go,” Jack mumbled as he smoothed down the tape and set about getting his unhappy, uncomfortable, squirmy baby redressed.

“Did you ever come back to bed?”

Jack sighed, picked Bobby up, and turned to see Lureen standing in the doorway, mostly dressed but with her hair and makeup still not done. “No, I didn't. Can't hardly leave Bobby five minutes or he starts sounding like he's gonna choke on his own snot.”

She frowned. “Do I need to stay home with him?”

“Nah, I'll stay.” Jack put Bobby in his crib and took a moment to examine the snot stain on his shirt. “They'll miss you at work more than they'd miss me.”

“Well...you're not wrong.” Lureen came into the room and stooped by the crib to face Bobby at his level where he was holding himself up against the bars. “I'm sorry you're still not feeling good, honey.” She glanced up at Jack. “Think we oughta take him to see the pediatrician?”

“I dunno.” He ruffled Bobby's hair gently. “Might call my mama, see if she's got any advice. If he's not better by tomorrow, then yeah.”

“I can ask my mama, too.”

“Lureen….” Jack leaned on the wall and closed his eyes. “Your mama isn't the most...” he waved one hand vaguely.

She sighed. “Yeah, I know, you're right.” She stood. “I'll finish gettin' ready, then. You call your mama and...change your shirt.”

“Why bother? As soon as I do he's just gonna sneeze on me again!” He looked to Bobby. “Aren't you? Goo-y little snot monster.”

As if on cue, Bobby sneezed, bonked his head on the crib rail, and started crying again.

After Lureen left for work, Jack found a minute to dial Lightning Flat. It took a few rings for the other end to pick up.

“Good morning, this is Sandra at the general store, how can I help?”

“Good morning, Miss Sandra, this is Jack Twist.”

“Oh! Hey there, Jack. To what do I owe the pleasure? How's things in Texas?”

“They're alright,” Jack said. “I was hoping you could get word to my mama that I need her to call me. My kid's sick, and not to say my mother-in-law's useless, but….”

“But your mother-in-law's useless?” Miss Sandra finished with a smile in her voice.

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “I could really use advice from someone who actually knows a thing or two.”

“Of course. I'll make sure she calls you.”

“Thank you.”

Almost two hours later, Jack was engaged in a battle of wills with his son, and losing.

“You gotta eat _somethin_ _'_ , bud,” he told Bobby, who'd so far refused cheerios, cheese, a banana, and all the leftovers Jack had found in the fridge.

“No,” Bobby said emphatically, throwing a tiny fistful of corn.

Jack sighed and stared dejectedly at the kernels on the floor. “You know your mama doesn't believe me you can talk.”

Bobby glared resolutely, hands flat on the tray of his high chair, a dribble of goo leaking from one nostril.

“We're running out of food in the house I'm sure's even safe for you, and neither a us is in any shape to go to the store, so we gotta work somethin' out here.”

Bobby threw more corn. Jack sighed, stepped toward the fridge, then quickly rerouted to the living room when the phone started ringing.

“Hello?” Jack answered, stretching the phone cord so he could keep an eye on Bobby through the door to the kitchen.

“Jack,” Sue Twist said with a kind of soft knowingness, “a little bird told me you needed some help from your mama.”

“That little bird happen to be named Sandra?” Jack asked, grinning a little.

“No,” his mother laughed gently. “She sent the Johnson's boy to get me. What's a matter?”

“Bobby's sick. Snotty, sneezin', coughin' up whatever goop don't come outa his nose. He's miserable, can't hardly sleep, and now he won't eat.” A hint of worry crept into Jack's voice.

Sue made a sound of sympathy in her throat. “That's no fun for anyone, poor thing.”

“What do I do?”

“Well, he doesn't wanna eat because he doesn't feel good, so lets worry about that first and he'll get his appetite back. You got any Vicks?”

“I...think so.”

“Check,” Sue told him, mildly exasperated. “If ya do, put some on his chest. He's too little to set up with a kettle to breathe steam, so you better go run a bath hot as hell, sit with him in the bathroom. Once it cools down, might as well go ahead and give him a bath. If you got any camomile or mint tea bags, chuck a few in the water while yer runnin' it.”

“Okay.” Jack nodded. “Thank you, Mama.”

“Any time, kiddo. You need me, you got me. Now, go take care a your son.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Love you, Jack.”

“Love you, too, Mama.”

On his mother's advice, Jack dug out some tea—they had mint—and hunted through the medicine cabinet, then the top shelf of the linen closet where they kept whatever didn't fit in the cabinet, until he turned up a jar of Vicks.

He sat on a towel on the bathroom floor—door closed, fan off—with Bobby stripped down to his diaper and a smear of Vicks, holding a mostly one-sided conversation about rubber ducks while the water ran, filling the bathroom with faintly minty steam as intended.

To Jack's relief, Bobby already seemed better by the time the full tub of hot water had cooled to a safe temperature. He was breathing easier and hardly coughing. He was starting to doze off by the time Jack had him washed and dried, so Jack put him down to sleep, then went to clean himself up and have some semblance of lunch. When all that was done, Jack decided to take a nap of his own while Bobby was asleep and he had a chance—on the floor of Bobby's room, just in case.

That night, after Lureen had gotten home from a very boring day at work to find Jack already working on dinner between loads of laundry while a much improved, but still sniffly, Bobby supervised and babbled between handfuls of cheerios, she put her son to bed despite his half-intelligible protestations, then came to join her husband in their own room. Jack was in bed, legs under the covers, but sitting halfway up against the headboard, staring at the far wall instead of reading the ag industry magazine that was open on his lap.

“You alright?” Lureen asked, getting into bed next to him.

“Hm? Yeah.” He flicked his magazine to keep it from drooping and turned the page.

She leaned against him so she could see what he was reading and tucked her floor-cold toes under his leg to warm them. “Tired?”

“Not really. I mean, kinda, but I took more than one nap today, so it's weird.”

“Do I need to make you tired?” she asked in a playful murmur against his ear as she carded her pink-painted nails through his hair.

He gave a little snort that wasn't quite a chuckle and kissed her cheek. “Nah, not tonight.”

With that he tossed his magazine aside and reached to turn out the lamp.


	7. Somethin' You Want

It took the better part of a week before Ennis got around to asking his boss if he could have some time off around Easter. He needn't have worried about it; his boss agreed easily, grateful to have plenty of time to prepare for Ennis's few days of absence. He sent a postcard to let Jack know when he was free and suggesting a place up in the mountains they could go. Jack sent one back to confirm their plans.

Two months later, before light the morning of Good Friday, Ennis packed his shit, tossed it in his truck, loaded up his two horses he'd managed to hang on to through the divorce, and made the three hour drive from Hudson up into the mountains. He drove til the gravel road ended, parked, tromped a ways along what there was of a trail with the horses and all his crap til he found an open, flat-ish spot with an old fire ring by a clear little creak, and went about setting up camp. He had no idea when Jack would get there—depended a lot on when he'd left—but trusted he'd find him. He wasn't that far from where he'd left his truck, close enough he figured he'd hear it when Jack drove up.

He didn't.

He was arranging wood in the fire ring under the early afternoon sun when the faint crunch of footsteps on the trail caught his attention. He'd just looked up when Jack came into view, spotted him, and broke out into a smile brighter than the sunshine. He full on ran the last few paces from the trail to Ennis's camp, dropped his pack and the duffle he was carrying, and tackled Ennis in a hug that knocked both of them—and their hats—to the ground. He kissed Ennis hard, then sat back on his heels at Ennis's waist, still grinning. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Ennis mumbled back, more than a little stunned. He smacked Jack's elbow. “Get off.”

Jack rolled his eyes but stood. “Missed you too.”

He offered Ennis a hand up, which he took then didn't let go of.

“Missed you,” Ennis echoed, eyes on their joined hands.

Jack lay a hand on Ennis's cheek, kissed him again, then just studied him for a long minute. Ennis looked away. Jack let him go, made a bit of a show of picking up his hat, cleared his throat, and took a step toward the horses. “Who're these beauties?”

“The sorrel's Daisy Chain,” Ennis said, picking up his own hat and putting it back on, “and the bay is Pickles.”

Jack paused in putting a hand out for Daisy Chain to sniff at and turned over his shoulder to Ennis. “You didn't name 'em, did you?”

“No, I didn't,” Ennis agreed. “What makes you think that, though?”

Jack shrugged and Daisy Chain let him pat her. “Daisy Chain and Pickles just don't sound like your style, friend.”

“I'll have you know I named my first horse Pancake.”

“Really?” Jack laughed. Pickles headbutted him gently, objecting to Daisy Chain getting all the attention.

“Yup. I was 'bout ten, she was a palomino—same color as a pancake. Thought I was bein' clever.”

“I think you were right.” Jack flashed him a grin while he patted Pickles. “Good news is I think your horses like me.”

Ennis snorted a little, joined Jack with the horses. “Thought we might wanna go for a ride or some'in'.”

Daisy Chain knocked his hat off again nuzzling at him.

“Oh, I'd be wanting to go for a ride whether you had horses or not,” Jack said suggestively, grabbing Ennis's hat for him.

Ennis stared at him and did not take the proffered hat.

“C'mon, Ennis,” Jack huffed, half exasperated half amused, and put Ennis's hat on his head for him. “There's no way in hell you don't know just as well as I do that we came out here to fuck. Hell—you suggested this ridge, you picked this spot, and I'm pretty sure we can fuckin' see the place we first had sex from here.” He pointed up across the valley to the edge of the treeline on the next peak over, Brokeback Mountain.

Ennis sucked in a breath like he was gonna say something, but didn't, just turned red, took a few steps away, kicked a rock into the creek.

Jack sighed, went over to where he'd dropped his bags, dug out a bottle of whiskey, opened it, took a swig, then went and pressed it on Ennis. “How was your drive?”

“Fine.” Ennis glanced at the label appraisingly, arched an eyebrow impressed, and took a drink. “Yours?”

“Long. Left yesterday, stopped over in Denver last night—found this candy shop what's been there since the twenties, gave in and bought some. Set back out this mornin'.” He sat next to his bags, dug through some more, and produced a little tin of lemon drops. He held out the tin to Ennis, who traded him the bottle of whiskey and sat across from him.

“How long's it from here to Childress?” Ennis asked, popping the lid off the tin.

“Sixteen hours.” Jack had some whiskey. “Denver's right smack in the middle.”

Ennis nodded, tried one of the lemon drops, and almost laughed—which almost made him accidentally spit it out, so he wound up with a hand over his mouth. “These are really good.”

“I know!” Jack did laugh. “Spent more than I probably shoulda on candy. Brought some actual food, too—it's still in my truck, I couldn't carry everything at once.”

“Better go get it or we won't want to later,” Ennis said, levering himself back up off the ground.

“Yeah, alright.”

After a late lunch, early dinner, whatever the hell meal you eat around four pm, more of the bottle of whiskey, a couple beers, and more candy, Jack and Ennis fell back into their old camping habits, as Jack had predicted. The both of them lay in the fading light between the fire and the creek with grass-burned knees, still catching their breath. Jack pulled Ennis to his chest, absently brushed a leaf off his arm, kissed his hair, then craned a little to look out across at the next ridge.

“I really never thought I'd have this again.”

“Don't you dare get all mushy on me,” Ennis mumbled into his neck, eyes closed.

“Shut up, you love this much's I do.”

“I put up with this for you.”

“Bullshit,” Jack snorted. He paused, dumped Ennis on the ground next to him, and rolled onto his side to face him. “Serious question: how much you remember of that first time in the tent?”

“The fuck you mean 'how much I remember?'” Ennis sat up.

Jack lifted his head. “You were drunk off your ass, I mean how much do you actually remember past 'we fucked,' hm?”

Ennis shrugged, leaned his elbows on his folded knees, fiddled with a blade of grass, and resolutely did not look at Jack. “Remember you started shit.”

“Yeah, I did.” Jack sat up, too, propped back on his hands, one leg crossed loosely under the other. “I made the first move—I took your hand from where it already was on my hip and moved it about six inches, _over my clothes_. You yanked away so fast I thought for sure you were gonna punch my lights out—”

“Just about did,” Ennis muttered without looking up.

“But you didn't, you sure as hell didn't.” Jack flopped back flat in the grass and let out a long breath. “You're the one who decided we were gonna have sex that night, not me.”

“Shut up, Jack.”

In one movement, Jack rolled forward onto his knees, ignoring the sting, and tilted Ennis's chin up to look at him, face inches away. “Why should I?”

Ennis jerked away, stood, and stalked over to retrieve his jeans.

Jack got to his feet. “If you had punched me, I was ready for that. Weighed that risk for I don't know how long 'fore I did _anything_. Had apologies and excuses 'bout bein' drunk and dreamin' all lined up. But I didn't need 'em because _you_ took things farther than I woulda dared. Next morning, when you left without sayin' a damn word to me, I thought that was it, we're just gonna pretend nothin' happened. Then _you_ came back to me. You're the one who set how that summer went. Then last year, when I came by Riverton, _you_ dragged me outa sight of the road to kiss me so hard I think you damn near broke my nose. And at that motel it was more of the same. So you don't get to try and tell me that _this_ is all on me when more times than not you can't keep your damn hands off a me!”

“You're right!” Ennis snapped, still holding his jeans up with one hand. “You're right, an' I remember, but I don't like to think about it, an' I sure as hell don't wanna talk about it. Because it _scares_ me, Jack. An' you—you know why.”

Jack sighed, and bowed his head. “Yeah, I do.” He walked over, helped Ennis fix his belt, and leaned up to kiss him softly. “You still taste like lemon drops.”

“D'n't seem to bother you.”

“It sure don't.” He reached up to ruffle Ennis's hair then poked him squarely in the chest. “I mean it, though. You don't get to act like any a this is somethin' I'm forcin' on you. Feel however you feel about it, but this is somethin' _you_ want, and you are going to be honest with me about that.”

Ennis leaned their foreheads together, closed his eyes, and flattened Jack's hand against his chest, holding it there over his heartbeat. After a long moment, he mumbled, “I do want this. I missed this. An' I missed you.” He took a breath, then finished even quieter, “Cuz I want you.”

“I know,” Jack said softly. “Can't tell ya how glad I am to hear it, though.”

Ennis kissed his forehead, then gave his shoulder a bit of a shove. “Go put yer pants on.”

“Why?” Jack chuckled, already moving to pick up his own jeans. “You're just gonna rip 'em off again in 'bout half an hour.”


	8. Happy Easter

A particularly loud and nearby bird woke Jack. It wasn't quite light and the air was cool, but under a mismatch of blankets with Ennis cuddled against him he was comfortably warm, even though he had, sure enough, wound up naked again. He rolled onto his back, carefully shifting Ennis along with him, and lay there, eyes closed, listening to their breathing and the birdsong, brushing one thumb back and forth, back and forth against the muscle of Ennis's shoulder, just enjoying being there, with him, with nowhere they had to go and nothing they had to do.

After a while, he heard Ennis's breathing change a little, then a bit after that Ennis mumbled, “Y'awake?”

“Nope,” Jack answered without opening his eyes or stopping the movement of his thumb.

“Me neither.”

Jack grinned a little and lifted his head to nuzzle at Ennis's hair. “Wan'me to make breakfast?”

Ennis tightened his hold on Jack. “Don'wan'ya ta get up.”

“Maybe I need to wake you up first, hm?” Jack suggested, rolling them over so he could kiss his way along Ennis's jaw and down his throat. Ennis hummed a wordless agreement.

Eventually, they did get up, got dressed, and made breakfast. They talked—Ennis telling about the divorce and his work in Hudson, how little he got to see his girls; Jack about Bobby more than anything else, how big he was getting, talking and walking like it was nothing.

After lunch, they took the horses out to explore some, found a single gnarled apple tree in full bloom growing by itself—probably having stubbornly grown up from some hunter's meal scraps thrown away decades ago.

They had dinner, drank, went back to bed. In between everything, they fucked whenever the fancy struck, but didn't say a word more about it.

Sunday went about the same, with the addition of Jack offering a cheerful, “Happy Easter,” over breakfast as he handed Ennis a tin cup of coffee over the fire. Ennis, sitting across from him, not next to him like he did in the evenings, mumbled the sentiment back.

Monday, as they were packing up camp getting ready to drive back to their lives, Ennis stopped and stood a while in the middle of folding up his crappy little tent to stare across at the next ridge, canvas held to his chest. Jack glanced up and noticed him looking—then noticed again a minute later that Ennis hadn't moved so he stopped what he was doing and stepped up beside him.

“Whatcha lookin' at?”

“You're right,” Ennis said gruffly. “That is where we were.” He pointed. “You see that kinda gray-brown patch right near the tree line? That's the camp platform. Lil' dark smudges there to the left's the fire ring an' that one log.”

Jack squinted at the distance. “You're farsighted, ain't ya?”

Ennis shrugged. “Bit.”

“Damn, no wonder yer such a good shot—I can't hardly see shit from this far, but yeah, that's gotta be the platform. Nothin' else up there's that square.” He leaned on Ennis's shoulder. “Feel like I spent half that summer starin' 'cross that ridge, tryin' ta see what you were up to. Night time in that damn pup tent, I'd look an' see this little spot a light from your fire, wish I was there with ya.”

Ennis nodded quietly, took a breath. “I'd see you sometimes—you an' the dogs. Dark spot an' a buncha tiny zippy other dark spots runnin' 'round and through the big kinda dirty gray smear that's the sheep.”

Jack snorted. “Won't lie, I keep expecting to look over an' see a buncha sheep up there, but I guess it's a few weeks early for that still.”

“Yeah.”

Jack closed his eyes and sighed. “I really don't wanna drive back to Texas.”

“Well, ya can't stay here, darlin'.”

“Could if you had a better tent.”

“Jack.”

“I know, I know.” He straightened up, rolled his neck, kissed Ennis quick before going back to what he'd been doing.

They packed everything away, caused eachother to have to fix their clothes once more—thankfully without any punches or nosebleeds this time—then loaded up the horses and their trucks, said their reluctant goodbyes between promises to do this again sometime, then gave in to the inevitable and started their drives.

Jack followed Ennis's battered old truck the whole crawling unpaved way down the mountain, and kept following a while even after they hit asphalt until he had to turn and head south while Ennis headed on east. He just caught a glimpse of Ennis's hand raised in a wave and lifted his own to return it, not expecting Ennis to see. He held it there longer than he had any reason to, then put his fingers to his lips before returning his hand to the steering wheel.

~*~

Jack got home Wednesday evening. Friday, he and Lureen had dinner at her parents' house, leaving Bobby home with a sitter.

“It really was the cutest thing,” Lureen was saying, finishing up a story about Bobby's misadventures in Easter egg hunting. She'd told it at least once a day since Jack had gotten home, but he honestly didn't mind. “You'll have to see the pictures—I'll pick 'em up tomorrow. I hope they turned out alright.”

“I'm sure they did,” Jack said in the calculatedly inoffensive way he always found himself speaking around her parents. “Just sorry I missed it.”

“You _should_ have been there,” L.D. growled over his beer.

Jack held in a sigh and silently cursed himself for giving his father-in-law an excuse to start in on him again.

“Remind me what you were doing up in Wyoming?” Fay, his mother-in-law, asked, polite as anything but a little too sweet. “Visiting your family?”

“Not this time, no, ma'am,” Jack answered. “Visitin' a friend.”

“So you just up and abandoned your wife and child,” L.D. said, “on Easter, to what? Get drunk with some other dropout farmboy?”

“Daddy...” Lureen said with a hint of reproach, but didn't follow it up.

“We went camping,” Jack bit out, too even.

“Why exactly couldn't you have done that any other weekend, so you could have Easter with your family like a decent fellow?” L.D. pressed.

“ _Because_ ,” Jack did not snap, “ranch work is demanding and Easter is the only time he could take off.”

L.D. made a derisive sound. “Maybe this friend of yours could teach you a thing or two about valuing work, then. You don't seem to think much of disappearing for a week.”

“It's a sixteen hour drive! It takes me an extra two days to head up there and back.”

“Hardly seems worth it, then.”

“It's worth it to me!” Jack glanced to Lureen for support but her eyes were on her plate, hands folded in her lap. “To see my friends, my family, in my home state—yeah, that's worth it to me.”

“Then again,” L.D. mused coldly, “it's not like you bring much worth missing when you are around, Rodeo.”

Jack stared at him. He looked to Lureen again but she didn't meet his eye, didn't say a word. After a long moment, Jack shoved his chair back from the table. “You know what? Fine.” He stood. “You have never wanted me here—you've made that clear from the day we met. I think the first conversation we ever had was you _oh_ so kindly offering to pay me to get outa your daughter's life. I think I'll take you up on that now.”

Lureen's head snapped up. “Jack!”

“Oh, now you got somethin' to say,” he spat bitterly, threw his napkin on the table, and strode out.

Lureen followed—she climbed quickly up into his truck just as he started it. He was already backing out the driveway before she'd quite gotten the door closed.

“What the hell are you doing, Jack?” she demanded.

“Goin' the fuck home—or at least to the house I happen to live in. Not really mine, is it?” He ran the stop sign at the end of the street. “Place's in your name, not mine.”

“Jack.”

“I have been telling you for _years_ , Lureen,” he smacked the steering wheel, “your daddy hates me and treats me like shit. Everyone we work with treats me like shit. It's been this way _all along_ and I have been telling you! But you never believe me. You always tell me it can't be that bad, that I'm paranoid or bein' too sensitive. Then it happens right in front of you and you don't say shit—you can't ever find a goddamn word to defend me. So, fine. Your daddy doesn't want me here, and you clearly don't care enough disagree with him, so I'll leave. Let's both make the old bastard happy for once.”

“Jack, I love you,” she said, too stunned to be tearful.

He shook his head, pulled into their own driveway, and cut the engine. “I love you, too.” His voice cracked a little and he swallowed. “But I sure wish you'd act like you give a shit about me.” He looked at her—she was turned sideways on the bench seat, one arm braced against the dashboard, the other against the seat back, gaping at him. “At this point, I don't think I ever shoulda married you. I probably wouldn't've if Bobby hadn't come along. Goddamn, I tried to do the right thing by you, and for him. And I love that little boy more than anything, but I do not hate myself nearly enough to sit here and keep living with all the shit everyone in your life keeps dumping on me.”

He shoved his door open, stalked into the house, handed the somewhat startled babysitter almost twice what they owed her, then went and sat down in the middle of their perfectly manicured back yard to smoke.


	9. What're You Thinkin'

Mid May, Ennis got a postcard from Texas with just four words scribbled on it:

_I'm getting divorced._

— _Jack_

Ennis stopped in his tracks, midway between his mailbox and his door, forehead scrunching as he read the card at arm's length. He went inside just long enough to drop the rest of his mail and grab a fistful of coins out of the old coffee tin by his bed, then turned right around and went to the nearest payphone. He checked his watch as he listened to the ringback—late Saturday afternoon ought to be an okay time to call, he figured.

The line picked up. “Hello?”

“Jack?”

There was a fraction of a second pause on the other end. “Ennis?”

“Are you outa yer mind?” Ennis asked.

Jack sighed a long fizzle of static over the phone. “Probably. Guess you got my card then.”

“I sure did.”

“Just thought—I oughta let you know,” Jack said tightly.

Ennis leaned his forehead on his arm against the body of the payphone. “What're you thinkin', Jack?”

“I don't know,” Jack laughed tiredly. “Just that—all the shit I told you about, it's only ever been getting' worse, not better, an' I don't wanna find out how bad it can get.”

There was some distant noise on Jack's end Ennis couldn't make out.

“Look, I gotta go,” Jack said quickly. “I'll let you know if I'm gonna be back up that way sometime—I don't know when I'll be able to. This whole thing's probably gonna take a while, it's already a mess. Probably don't call again—I don't know how long I'm still gonna be at this number. I'll write you. And thank you. I gotta go.”

He hung up, leaving Ennis listening to the dial tone.

Ennis put the payphone back on its hook and let out a breath. “Fuck.”

Ennis got a second card about a month later for the Fourth of July that didn't say anything of substance. He sent one back, but didn't hear anything more. Months passed. Ennis tried not to worry, remembering how time consuming his own divorce had been even with its relative amicability. The thought didn't help much.

Finally, the first week of November another postcard came, still postmarked to the same Childress address much to Ennis's surprise, asking if there was any chance Ennis could take off the weekend after Thanksgiving. Ennis told him yes before telling his boss he'd need the time.

That last Saturday in November, Ennis drove out to the same camp as last Easter. This late in the year it was plenty cold, but it hadn't snowed appreciably yet and what little snow there had been earlier in the month hadn't survived the wind and couple odd warm days.

Jack's truck was already sitting there at the end of the road when Ennis pulled up. Knowing from Jack's last postcard that this would be a short trip and expecting the weather to be worse than it was, he'd left the horses at home, so he set off up the trail alone. He could smell the fire before he saw it, the there was Jack, bundled in some monstrosity of a jacket, sitting on a camp chair, half empty bottle of whiskey in hand, staring into the flames. He looked up as Ennis approached, stood, dropped the whiskey in the chair, closed the distance between them, and barely gave Ennis a chance to drop his things before he hugged him hard. He wordlessly tucked his face against Ennis's shoulder. Ennis rubbed his back best he could through the heavy coat.

“Hey, darlin',” Ennis said softly. He leaned away a little and lifted Jack's chin to look at him, touched his face gently. “You alright?”

“Not really, no—and don't ask me how the divorce is goin', I don't wanna hafta think about that shit til I get back to Texas day after tomorrow,” Jack said all in one breath, then kissed Ennis. He tripped a little as Ennis walked him back against the nearest tree.

The below freezing temperatures mostly kept their affections confined to the tent—which was, Jack was quick to point out, a better tent. Ennis had to agree.

“It's cold as fuck,” Jack complained as he came back from taking a piss and burrowed against Ennis for warmth.

“Least it's above zero,” Ennis offered. He got only grumbles response—followed by icy fingers somewhere markedly warmer that made him jump and swear colorfully.

That night, mostly because of the cold, Ennis for once found himself holding Jack, like it had been up on that next ridge that first night, his hand on Jack's hip. By morning, Jack had rolled over to face him. Ennis woke to careful fingers tracing the lines of his face and tired blue eyes that were just a little too shiny. Ennis closed his own eyes again. Jack settled his hand flat against his cheek.

“I—” Jack began, but stopped short. He took a breath. “I wish it could be like this,” he murmured, “just like this, always.”

“Still can't stay here,” Ennis said softly.

“But I got a better tent.” There was a teasing note to Jack's tone but it wasn't enough to stop him sounding wistful and sad.

“You sure did,” Ennis agreed, opening his eyes to reach up and run a hand through Jack's hair. “You sure did.”

~*~

The next Sunday found Ennis on the front porch of his former sister-in-law's house in Riverton, dropping off his girls after having them in Hudson for the weekend. Alma set Jenny down just inside the door and she toddled off determinedly after her sister, who had already kicked off her shoes and gone to enshrine the tiny pinecone she'd found that morning in the treasure box she kept under her bed.

“Seems like they had a good time,” Alma observed—she stepped back out and shut the front door. They tried to talk some when they saw each other, keep things friendly for the girls' sake. It was getting less awkward time by time.

Ennis nodded, hands in his pockets, eyes down. “Jenny really likes the cattle—climb right through the fence if I'd let her. Junior'd rather be with the horses. Think she's prob'ly got the right idea.”

“You oughta teach her to ride when she's a little bigger.” Alma tucked a bit of hair behind her ear. “She's a lot like you, I expect she'd be good.”

He nodded again, didn't mention he'd already had her up in the saddle, changed the subject. “And thank you, again, for bein' willin' to change around weekends a little.”

“Oh, that really wasn't any trouble.” She smiled a little and shrugged. “Was nice, really, to not have to pack 'em up to go right after Thanksgiving—this weekend was better anyway. 'Sides, now I can insist on keepin' em for this New Years' party Barb's got planned and call it even.” She looked at him curiously. “You never did mention why you needed to change weekends—you go visit your brother for the holiday or somethin'?”

He looked at her flatly. “Alma, you know I ain't talked to my brother since our wedding.”

She shrugged again and he looked away.

“No. Uh.” He swallowed and mumbled, “Jack wrote me he was gonna be around, an' he's goin' through some crap right now so I agreed to meet 'im 'fore I bothered to look at my calendar.”

She nodded slowly. “You're still seein' him, then,” she concluded innocuously.

“Not really, no. I mean, I _seen_ him, but just twice since—y'know, since you met him.”

He stared at her feet.

For a long moment they were both quiet, then she asked, “How is he? Other than goin' through crap.”

“He's alright.”

“Good.”

And that was that.


	10. Heartache Wears On Ya

Sue Twist was alone at the house—her husband, John, and their longtime ranchhand, Collin, were off elsewhere on the property tending to the daily hassles of keeping cattle with Collin's teenaged daughter lending a hand. She had been helping Sue in the vegetable garden earlier, but she'd gotten bored. Apparently weeding just couldn't compete with the allure and excitement of potentially getting trampled by an angry mama cow. At least, Sue thought, this one didn't have ambitions of being a rodeo star.

She was just coming in, dusting dirt off her hands, when the crunch of tires on gravel and the growl of an engine drew her out to the front porch. She let the screen door bang closed, leaned next to it, watched her son's truck come up the driveway and park.

Jack got out, came and hugged her. “Hey, Mama.”

“Hey, Jack.” She returned the hug tightly then stepped back. “Where's Bobby?”

“Asleep.” Jack nodded toward the truck. “Where's Dad?”

“Out with Collin and Samantha and the cows,” she sighed. “They oughta be back in little a while. Why don't you grab Bobby—if it don't wake him up, put him down in your room—and you can catch me up while I get started on dinner. We can get you better settled later.”

Jack nodded, “Alright,” and went to carefully lift his sleeping toddler out the passenger side of his pickup. The boy barely stirred, so Sue held open the screen door for her son, let him carry her grandbaby upstairs to finish his nap.

Jack came back down from tucking Bobby into his own old bed and dropped into a kitchen chair while his mother got out things to start cooking. He took off his hat, set it on the table, ran a hand over his face and through his hair.

“Tired?” Sue asked.

“Like I just got off a rough roundup, just with less less muscle pain.”

“Yeah, but heartache wears on ya least as bad,” she pointed out, pulling out a knife to top and tail some onions.

He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “I'm just glad it's done with; year was more than long enough. I don't think I coulda kept shit up much longer.”

“Well, I'm glad a that, too,” Sue muttered to the onions.

By the time John and the others came in, Sue was just pulling potatoes out of the oven to go with the pan-fried chop steaks she had keeping warm on the stove, and Jack had Bobby sat up on the counter to watch his granma cook, fenced in by his father's protective arm to keep him away from the hot stove.

“There's my big boy!” John boomed, sweeping right past Jack to scoop Bobby into his arms and toss him into the air, making him laugh.

“Hey, Daddy,” Jack said flatly.

“And my grown boy,” John tacked on, reaching out to quickly scruff Jack's hair.

Collin, the ranchhand whose family tree had roots in at least three continents and who they'd had on since he was in his teens and Jack was just a kid, stepped forward, clasped Jack by the arm, and pulled him into a hug. “Hey, good to see you.”

“You too,” Jack sighed, returning the hug, then pulled away to turn to the girl who'd followed the men in, already plenty dark even this early in summer with a mess of reddish curls pulled up into a ponytail that looked more like it belonged on a wooly than any horse. He smiled at her. “Now, that _can't_ be Samantha.”

She grinned back. “Hey, Jack.”

He hugged her then held her at arm's length. “Lord, when did you get so grown?”

She shrugged and laughed. “I dunno.”

“I must be getting' old,” Jack half-joked.

“Oh hush, you're only twenty-five,” Sue chided fondly. She took Bobby from her husband, poked Jack into a chair at the table, and plopped Bobby in his lap. “Everybody sit, we can talk while we eat.”

And so they did. Everyone told Jack how things were on the ranch, what all he'd missed. He explained briefly about the divorce, mindful that Bobby was listening. Samantha told about school and how she was helping her dad help them for the summer.

After dinner, Sue took Bobby on her hip to give him a tour of her garden, keep him entertained while everyone else unloaded most of Jack's truck, shoved his things in his childhood bedroom and the closet, and re-built Bobby's bed in the space Jack's desk had been once they wrestled the desk into an out of the way corner of the living room downstairs.

Later, as Jack was putting Bobby to bed, the little boy looked up at him and asked, “Where's Mama?”

Jack took a deep breath, let it out slow, and ruffled Bobby's hair. “Mama's not comin' here, kiddo. We talked about this. You remember how I told you I decided I didn't wanna live with your mama anymore, because it was makin' me hurt?”

Bobby nodded.

“Yeah. Well, your mama decided if I'm not gonna live with her, she doesn't wanna see me at all, and she decided she doesn't wanna see you either.” Jack chewed his lip and smoothed Bobby's blanket. “So we're not gonna see your Mama anymore—she's down in Texas, and you and me live up here in Wyoming with your granma and granpa now. Okay?”

“Okay,” Bobby said quietly. Then, after a moment, even quieter, “Miss 'er.”

Jack closed his eyes for a moment. “I know, bud.” He leaned forward to kiss his son on the forehead. “Goodnight, Bobby.”

“Night, Daddy.”

Jack turned off the light on his way out of the room, paused in the doorway to look back at his son, then pulled the door shut and turned to find himself face to face with his mother out in the hall. She gave him a sympathetic, knowing sort of smile and beckoned for him to follow her downstairs.

He did.

She put the kettle on.

Leaning back against the counter, Jack shook his head, looked up at the ceiling for want of being under the sky, let out a breath.

“He's gonna be okay.” Sue came and rubbed his shoulder. “Might take him a while to get used to the changes, and a course the changes are gonna change him, that's just how people are, but kids are tough. And Twists are tough. He'll be alright. He's got you, besides.”

“Thanks,” Jack mumbled. He was quiet the whole while it took the kettle to heat, and Sue let him be. It wasn't until she was pouring water into mugs for tea that he spoke again. “You know, I really wouldn't'a had hard feelings for her, I wouldn't.” He rubbed his thumb against his ring finger. “The way she treated me weren't alright, not listenin', not carin', lettin' everybody in her life treat me like crap—that weren't alright.”

“That's why you left.”

“Exactly! But I _understand_ why she's like that.” He sighed. “Especially when it comes to her father, she's got that whole good girl thing goin', raised not to make a fuss. Lets him treat me like crap cuz she lets him treat _her_ like crap—don't think she even sees that side of it. I couldn't live with that, but I wouldn't a held it against her. But her just _giving up_ Bobby?” He shook his head again, chewed his words. “Wavin' custody and all her rights cuz it'd be _too much trouble_ and would—what was it?— _harm her social standing_? Fuck that, and fuck her. He's her kid. How—how can a mother just decide she's done with her kid?”

“I don't know,” Sue said gently. She turned and pressed a mug of tea into his hands. “None of us can know what's in her mind, and it's not worth it for ya to drive yourself crazy tryin' to understand. You got outa there 'fore it broke you down, and you got your son. That's what's important. This way...” she shrugged, “it's simpler, and it means you don't ever have to deal with that L.D. sonofabitch again, so maybe it's for the best.”

“Yeah, maybe so.” He ducked his head and took a careful sip of his tea.

Over the next few days, Jack fell quickly back into the rhythms of ranch life he'd grown up with, altered only slightly by having his own kid on hand. The work itself was familiar, even if he'd gotten a little out of shape over the last few years sitting on his ass selling tractors, and his dad gave him hell for struggling to keep up. Least John Twist being a hardass was familiar, too, and a supportive clap on the shoulder from Collin telling him to ignore it, or catching Samantha rolling her eyes behind John's back did a lot to alleviate that frustration.

Even so, things were weighing on Jack and his mother could sure see it. He was slower to laugh and his smile died quicker than it used to; he was smoking more, joking less, butting heads with his father as much as ever but letting John have his way with maybe half as much of a fight.

One evening after al the after-dinner chores had been done, Sue came out to the porch where Jack was leaning on the rail, having a cigaret next to the ashtray he and his father constantly kept overfull and that was always in danger of falling off the rail that was really too skinny for it to sit on.

He blew a stream of smoke out his nose. “Hey, Mama.”

“Hey, Jack.” She held out an uncapped beer, offering it to him.

“Thanks.” He took the bottle, took a sip.

Sue leaned against the side of the house, arms crossed, and watched him for a minute. “Jack, I think you need a break from things.”

He snorted. “Whadaya think I'm doin' out here?”

“Looks to me like you're having a smoke, but that's not what I mean.”

He turned, frowning, to face her, stubbing out his cigaret as he did. “What do you mean?”

“You been through a lot the past few months, then you come here and get right back into everything like you're fine, but you're not—don't try an' tell me you are, you know you're shit at lyin' to your mother.”

Jack snapped his mouth closed, having opened it to argue, and just nodded once instead.

“Mhm.” She pushed off from the wall and stepped forward to fix the front of his hair. “I think it would be good for you to get away from things, at least for a weekend.”

“I can't just run off, I got Bobby—”

“I raised you for seventeen years, I can keep your son alive without you for a few days,” she said flatly.

Jack hung his head, hiding a little smile. “Right. Course you can.”

“Damn right I can.” She smiled softly. “Don't you have a friend somewhere down near Signal?”

“Uh.” He blinked. “You mean Ennis…? He's in Hudson.”

She shrugged. “That might be who I'm thinkin' of. Why don't you write him or somebody, see if there's anybody who can go huntin' or somethin' with you. Just take a trip, take a break, try not to worry about things for a day or two and _breathe_ , kiddo.”

Jack glanced away, squinting at the last of the sun on the horizon. He shrugged, nodded, and took a drink of his beer. “I can at least ask.”

“I think you should.”


	11. I Missed You

Ennis's truck was already at the trailhead when Jack got there, battered as ever, empty horse trailer hitched to it, canvas tarp lashed over the bed with a couple odd shapes poking it up. Jack shouldered his pack, grabbed his duffle in one hand, basket of already-done and easy-to-finish food in the other, and made his way to their usual spot on the ridge across from Brokeback Mountain.

He found Ennis finishing up making camp—everything but the tent, since Jack had brought that—Pickles and Daisy Chain grazing over by the bank of the creek. Jack felt something loosen in his chest and he smiled as he put down his things. “Hey, En.”

“Hey. Ow, fuck.” Ennis yanked his hand back, having pinched a finger as he set down an armful of firewood, and flapped it to shake away the pain.

“You okay?” Jack asked, worried, halfway hopping over his own bags to come check on Ennis, take his hand in both his own.

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Ennis grumbled. “Shoulda worn gloves is all.”

Jack lifted Ennis's hand to kiss at his injured finger—Ennis jerked his hand away.

“Ennis?”

“Not alone.” He gestured shortly across to the next ridge and turned away to go back to what he was doing. Jack looked, squinting at the distance, and picked out signs of life—a dark red lump of a tent up on the square of the old camp platform, a thin curl of smoke from a fire, then farther up the slope above the tree line, the off-white smear of a thousand sheep looking like a drift of dirty snow, the spidery dot of a rider on a dark horse moving around the edge of them.

“For chrissakes, Ennis,” Jack huffed. He leaned his weight into one hip, hands on his waist. “First of all, there is no way in hell they can see us well enough to have a damn clue what we're doing. Second, I think they got better things to do than pay attention to a couple assholes out camping. Third, on the _remote_ chance that they do pay any damn attention and can actually see shit, they sure as hell ain't got any way to know who the fuck we are and they're not gonna make the however many mile hike to come give us shit for it. There's no way they cause us a single goddamn problem. Worse case scenario, they get a fuckin' idea and end up neglectin' the sheep.”

“Where's your tent?”

Jack rolled his eyes, grumbling to himself about, “...paranoid sonofabitch, can't believe I missed you, goddamnit,” and dug the tightly folded tent out of his duffle.

With much cursing and a fair amount of bickering that was mostly Ennis giving one-word responses to Jack's griping, they got the tent up. Ennis gave Jack a firm shove to get inside, followed, did quickly what he wouldn't in the open.

Jack lay on his back, eyes on the tentflap above him, Ennis next to him. He let out a breath. “Damn, I missed you.” He rolled over to press his face against Ennis's shoulder. “I missed you so much.”

Ennis ruffled the back of Jack's hair with gruff affection, then pushed him off, and rolled onto his knees to fix his own clothes.

“Where are you going?” Jack propped himself up on his hands.

“That basket you brought's full a food, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Gotta secure it so it don't attract bears.”

“...I'm not sure how I feel about the order a yer priorities that fuckin' me ranks higher than warding off bears, but I can't say I disagree.”

“Oh hush.”

Jack snorted, caught Ennis by the arm, and pulled himself up to kiss him again quick before giving him a little shove out the tent.

As evening fell, they sat by the fire—Jack leaning against Ennis who reluctantly allowed it—eating and drinking while Jack explained about the divorce, and Lureen taking herself out of the picture, moving back home, his parents, Collin and Samantha, Bobby.

“It's all been an adjustment but it's not so bad,” Jack concluded with half a shrug. He took a swig of whiskey and let out a breath. “How's things for you? Your girls an' all that?”

“I, uh, haven't seen 'em much for a bit.” Ennis took the bottle of whiskey.

Jack frowned. “How come?”

“Well,” Ennis shifted uncomfortably and swished the whiskey, “place I been workin' ran out a money—not so bad they couldn't keep payin' me long as I was there but bad enough they couldn't keep the place runnin'. So, there was a lot that needed to be done pretty short order to shut everythin' down, I was too busy to have the girls with me, then that's where I was livin' so I lost the roof over my head same time I lost the job, an' I can't have the girls if I ain't got a place for 'em to stay.”

“Shit, Ennis.” Jack had leaned away to gape.

He shrugged. “Handed the keys over to the bank last week—that's part a why I said yes to this weekend, figure I'll get on findin' somethin' else once I head back.”

“You got any idea where you'll wind up?”

Ennis shook his head, took a drink. “Asked everyplace that was buyin' livestock and equipment off my boss, but nowhere's hiring.” A pinecone fell with a loud _smack_ right behind them and they both looked to it instinctively. Ennis reached for it and chucked it in the fire, where it crackled and popped smokily. “I don't know what I'm gonna do,” Ennis continued. “I'll find some'in' though. Might end up back on the highway crew.”

“Do you _want_ to end up back on the highway crew?”

“Not really, but it's better than nothin'.”

“Shit.” Jack got up, walked half a pace away, turned back, and ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus Christ, Ennis, so you're, what—livin' out a your truck?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Ennis held his arms out in a sort of shrug. “It's nothin' I never done before.”

“Yeah, but not since you got kids.” Jack dropped back to the ground next to Ennis. “Look, my parents usually have a couple ranch hands on, not countin' me, but they're down to just Collin cuz the other fella they had recently, Mark, he got shipped to Vietnam last year an' nobody's heard from him in a while. How about, when we head back down from here an' get back to civilization, we both stop somewhere with a phone, I call up Lightning Flat, get my folks on the line, see if they'd be willin' to have you on at least until Mark gets back. If he gets back.” Jack paused. “If he gets back, _and_ can still work when 'e does….”

Slowly, Ennis started to shake his head, then harder. “No. Jack, I, no. I can't. We can't.”

“You are out of work and _living out of your truck._ ” Jack grabbed Ennis by the arm. “You have no path ahead of you for a job or a place to stay, and you can't take care of your kids or even _see_ them until you fix that, Ennis. All I'm doin' is offerin' you somethin' that _might_ give you a shortcut.”

Ennis met Jack's eyes for just a moment before looking away across to the next ridge and shook his head again.

Jack sighed and let him go. “You got a couple days to think about it.”

With that, Jack got up, went to lean against a tree by the creek, lit himself a cigaret, and kicked a rock into the water. He couldn't help his gaze from wandering to the bright spot of the fire over at the park service campsite. At this distance, in the deepening dark, there wasn't anything else to see, but the fire was a sure sign of life. Their own fire would be, too, for anyone looking the other way. In the two years he'd worked up there—seven months of his life all told—he'd never actually seen another campfire. He'd seen the occasional set of headlights, some car or a big truck making its way through the mountains, and he'd seen smoke, but always from around a rise, or something else blocking the view. Never another fire. He knew he would have noticed, but he wasn't sure how much he would have wondered about that other fire, and the people he wouldn't have been able to see around it.

He was wondering about the people whose fire he was looking at now. For one thing, he wondered if they were both even at that fire or if one poor sonofabitch was on his way to spend the night in a goddamn pup tent. No telling, but he hoped not.

He dropped the butt of his cigaret, ground it under his boot, and lit another. He didn't look around when he heard Ennis get up behind him. Footsteps neared, then stopped. Jack exhaled smoke, held the cigaret loose, didn't speak, didn't move. Fingers brushed his sleeve, then withdrew. A moment passed. Jack fiddled with the cigaret but didn't lift it. The fingers came back, curled into the front of his shirt as Ennis hid his face in the back of Jack's neck and mumbled, “I'll think about it.”

Jack lay his hand over Ennis's, brushed a thumb across his knuckles. “That's all I'm askin' for, darlin'.”

There was just a little too long of a pause before Ennis's next breath. The finger's in Jack's shirt tightened.


	12. Negotiating Things

Jack hung up the payphone, walked the two paces back to where Ennis was sitting on the tailgate of his truck, eating shitty, greasy fries from the diner across the street from the gas station.

“And now we wait.” Jack hopped up on the tailgate. Ennis pushed a paper basket of fries toward him.

“How long?”

Jack shrugged and ate a few fries. “However long it takes for Sandra to send somebody with word to my folks, then for my parents to argue about it, then for them to either send somebody back to Sandra or for one of 'em to get to the phone themselves.”

“So we could be stuck here all day.”

“Not like you got anywhere else to be, bud,” Jack pointed out.

Ennis grumbled wordlessly.

They ran out of fries. Jack bought himself a newspaper from the station, offered Ennis a section if he wanted, was turned down.

A red shooting-brake pulled into the station and parked at one of the pumps. A young man a few years younger than Jack and Ennis got out of the driver's seat, waving over the elderly attendant while his companion, probably his girlfriend by the looks of things, got out on the passenger side, mid-sentence.

“—you'd be walking your ass here alone.”

“We didn't run out of gas, though, Gail,” the man said exasperatedly.

Gail crossed her arms. “Barely.”

There was an audible, sucking _pop_ when the gas cap came off. Gail gestured at it in vindication. Over at their own trucks, Jack pressed his knuckles to his lips behind his newspaper to keep from laughing and Ennis mumbled, “Shit,” under his breath while the couple got their desperately needed gas.

“We _barely_ didn't just end up stranded in the middle of nowhere, and we are hopelessly lost, all because you won't listen!”

“We are not lost!”

“If we're not lost, then by all means, tell me where we are, Walter!”

“We're in Wyoming.”

“We've been in Wyoming all day!”

“Nearest town's Dubois,” Ennis called over.

Jack folded down his paper, “Holy crap, you just talked to a stranger,” then got up and stepped toward the couple to redirect the attention Ennis was clearly regretting having drawn. “Like he said, you're near Dubois, Wyoming, few miles mostly west a Table Mountain.”

“Thank you, sir,” Gail said with exaggerated sweetness and a smile that turned sharp when she glanced briefly back at Walter. “You a local?”

“Oh, not exactly,” Jack shrugged. “Used to work 'round these parts. Helpin' a friend move. But I know my way around pretty well, can probably help you folks figure out how to get where you're goin'. Happy to show ya, if you've got a map.”

“We do not have a map. That's about half the problem.” She looked pointedly at her boyfriend.

Walter opened his mouth, closed it, then turned to trudge into the station building. “Fine, I'll buy one.”

“Mhm.” Gail watched him go, one hand on her paisley-clad hip. She was wearing a ring, just one, and he wasn't. Fiancé, then, not girlfriend.

“So,” Jack asked, “where y'all headed?”

“In theory, to Cheyanne then on to Ohmaha, Nebraska.”

Jack cringed a little. “Ooh, you are nowhere near Cheyanne.”

“I didn't think so,” Gail sighed.

Walter had just re-emerged with a map when the payphone started ringing. Jack bit back a curse. “That's probably my mother calling me back. Ennis can you help them?”

“I—what?” Ennis asked, panicky, watching Jack half jog, half skip to the phone.

“Just point them toward Cheyanne!” He picked up, put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Jack?”

It took Jack half a second too long to respond, trying to place the voice. “ _Samantha?_ ”

“Hi, Jack.” She sounded relieved. “Uh, my dad's kinda still refereeing your parents, uh, _negotiating_ things but Sue sent me to go ahead and tell you that you and your friend can come on up to the ranch, she's happy to have him, she'll have John on board by the time you get here. And the way she said that _kinda_ sounded like it might be a threat. But yeah. And she also had me take Bobby so he could get the pop your dad promised him yesterday for helping sort through some junk from the shed. You wanna say hi?”

“Of course I do.” Jack grinned.

Map open on the hood of the shooting-brake, Ennis pointed to something and Gail's mouth dropped open. “We have been going the _wrong way_ _ **for three hours?!**_ ”

There was a lot of noise on the other end of then phone, then Samantha's voice from afar instructing, “Say hi to your daddy.”

“Hi, Daddy,” Bobby said, sounding uncertain.

Jack's grin widened til it hurt. “Hey, bud.”

“Hi!” Bobby said, suddenly much brighter. Jack realized he was pretty sure Bobby had never actually used a telephone before. Damn.

“You bein' good for Granma and Granpa?”

“Uhhuh!” Bobby confirmed. “Yes'rday I helped Granpa clean up an', uh, today 'Mantha gave me a coke.”

“Yeah?” Jack chuckled. Off to the side, Ennis had retreated, hands up, while the row between Walter and Gail escalated.

“Yeah!”

“Very cool.”

“You gonna be home soon?”

“I'll be home tonight, bud, yeah. Can you give the phone back to Samantha?”

“Yeah.”

More noise over the phone while Gail took off her ring, threw it at Walter, and stomped across the street to the diner.

“Hey,” Samantha said. Walter flinched at the projectile jewelry, scrambled to pick it up, and ran after her.

“Thanks for calling me back. I'll tell Ennis and we'll head that way.”

“Okay. Can't wait to meet this mysterious friend a yours.”

Jack snorted. “See ya, Samantha.”

“Bye now.”

They hung up and Jack turned to Ennis. “What the hell just happened?”

“Either that boy is 'bout to learn a whole lot real fast, or those two are doomed.”

“Jesus Christ.” Jack glanced over at the diner just as the one waitress came out, shaking her head and lighting a cigaret. “Anyway, Mama says you're welcome at our place.”

Ennis hesitated. “What's your daddy say?”

“Mama's still convincing him, but my money's on her on this one.”

“Okay.” Ennis nodded, took a deep breath, and let it out. “Okay. Guess we oughta get back on the road, then.”

“Yeah.” Jack stretched and rolled his neck. “Should probably go piss first—it's a seven-ish hour drive from here.”


	13. Glad to Meet You

Some eight hours after they left the gas station near Dubois, Jack pulled up in front of his parents' house in Lightning Flat, Ennis coming up the drive behind him, horse trailer rattling at the hitch. As Jack got out of his truck, his mother pushed open the screen door and Bobby came running out under her outstretched arm.

“Daddy!” He had to pause to navigate the porch steps, which were almost knee-height on him. He had just reached the bottom when Jack scooped him up, swung him around, and settled him on his hip.

“Hey, kiddo!” Jack put his own hat on Bobby's head and blew a raspberry against the boy's neck, making him laugh and squirm.

Sue came down from the porch and touched Jack's shoulder. “Glad to have you home.”

A truck door thunked closed and Jack turned to see Ennis, hands in his pockets, hat pulled down so it was hard to see his eyes.

“Mama, Bobby, this is my friend, Ennis Del Mar,” Jack introduced. “Ennis, this is my mother, Sue, and my son, Bobby.”

Ennis nodded tightly. “Nice'a meetcha.”

“Very glad to meet you, too, Ennis,” Sue said, stepping forward to shake his hand.

He shook her hand, nodded again, looked up at Bobby who was waving cheerfully, and gave him a nod too.

“You got horses,” Bobby said, pointing past Ennis to the trailer.

“Uh, yeah.” Ennis glanced back. “I do.”

“I bet Ennis'd let you meet 'em if you ask nice,” Jack told Bobby with a pointed look at Ennis that he didn't quite seem to catch.

“Can I meetchur horses please?”

“I, uh—yeah, sure.”

Jack set Bobby down and took his hat back. Bobby toddled over to Ennis and walked with him the length of the truck to be introduced to Pickles and Daisy Chain. Jack leaned toward his mother, eyes on his son, and asked quietly, “Where's Daddy?”

She sighed. “Bein' stubborn, apparently.” She went to the porch and called into the house. “John! Come out here and meet our new ranchhand, maybe show'm where he can keep his horses.”

For a moment, there was no response, just Sue standing on the top step, one hand on the hip she had her weight on just like her son sometimes did, Jack looking up at the house, and Ennis doing the same, hand on Bobby's back to keep the boy from falling from where he was stood up on the bar of the trailer to pat the horses' velveteen noses. Then the screen door banged open for John coming out in his overalls, still putting his hat on as he crossed the threshold.

Sue crossed her arms as her husband passed her, pivoting slowly on her heel to track his path across the yard before dismounting the porch herself. Ennis carefully set Bobby back on the ground, let him go back to Jack, hold onto the side seam of his jeans while he ruffled the boy's hair.

“Hey, Daddy,” Jack said evenly.

John grunted back a, “Hey,” then went and stopped a few feet in front of Ennis, looked him over. “So you're this Del Mar fellow I been _informed_ I'm hirin'.”

Ennis swallowed, bowed his head, nodded once. “Yessir.”

“You worked cattle before?”

“Off an' on my whole life, yeah. Been on a ranch down in Hudson 'til it went under last week.”

“Now, I _know_ I told Sandra that,” Jack said as he scooped Bobby back up to stop him tugging at his pocket.

John crossed his arms. “Can't pay ya much.”

“I think,” Sue said a little louder than was strictly necessary, “we can work out those exact details later. I'm sure anythin's better than nothin' and we can sure put a roof over your head.” She smiled up at Ennis. “Let's get your horses somewhere a little more comfortable, then you an' Jack an' Bobby can have yourselves a nice argument over who's endin' up sleepin' on the sofa 'til we can find another bed to stick somewhere. Alright?”

John glanced away and uncrossed his arms.

It took a fair bit of coaxing and cajoling and a little bit of wrestling to get Pickles and Daisy Chain from the trailer to the stable and into the two stalls farthest from the two already occupied.

Ennis shut the stall door behind Pickles and smacked the bolt into place. “Jack, you, uh, never mentioned you had any horses.”

“That's cuz he doesn't,” John said shortly.

“Zeus belongs to Collin,” Jack explained, gesturing to the larger and darker of the resident equines. “And Shellby,” he continued, indicating the gray so pale she passed for white, “is my Mama's, but Daddy and I are graciously allowed to ride her.”

“Every since Monkey got hit by a truck at least,” John grumbled and turned to stalk out of the stable.

Ennis glanced at Jack, who nodded, lips pressed into a tight line, and motioned to follow John back to the house. Hanging back a bit to leave some distance between them and his father, Jack explained quietly, “We got Monkey when I was kid. He kicked out a fence not long after I got back from working that summer you an' me met. He got on the road an', well….” Jack shrugged and sighed. “Wound up havin' to shoot 'im cuz, y'know there's some things horses just don't heal up from.”

“Yeah. Shit,” Ennis cursed quietly. “I'm sorry.”

“Eh, it's been a few years.” Jack scrubbed a knuckle under his nose. “Feels like a lifetime ago.”

“Whole marriage ago for both of us.”

Jack snorted. “Yeah, yeah, it was.”

Inside, Sue had leftovers from dinner heating up on the stove, Bobby sitting on the kitchen floor chattering up at his grandma while he played with a handful of little toy cars. John had dropped himself in a chair in the living room with the newspaper.

“Here,” Sue beckoned as Jack an Ennis came in and hung up their hats. “I figure you boys didn't eat too well on the road.”

“No, we did not,” Jack confirmed. “Thanks, Mama.” He pulled out a chair for himself at the kitchen table, motioned for Ennis to do the same, and turned to Bobby. “Whatcha got there, bud?”

Bobby launched into an explanation of his different cars and their colors and some kind of rivalry between the green one and the blue one that Jack didn't quite follow but he nodded along with anyway, saying things like, “Cool,” and “Is that right?” between bites of fried potato.

“What about that gray one?” Ennis asked. “Is it in the race too?”

Bobby shook his head emphatically. “No that one's dead.”

“Oh, well, okay then.”

A minute or so later, Jack finished eating and took a yawning Bobby up to tuck him into bed. Sue picked up his empty plate and gestured at Ennis's. “You done?”

“Yeah. Uh,” Ennis wiped his palms on his jeans, “you need help with that?”

“Nah, I got it. Thank you, though.” She went to scrape the scraps into a bucket at the end of the counter. “You got kids, Ennis?”

“Yeah, two little girls.”

She smiled. “I'm sure they love their daddy a whole lot, you seem real good with kids just from what I've seen a you an' Bobby.”

Ennis looked down at his hands on the table. “Thank you, ma'am.”

Unsure what to do with himself, Ennis chewed at his thumbnail. Sue glanced back at him then called over the sound of the running water, “John, I think now might be a good time to hash out the financial details of Ennis's employment.”

With a grunt John came grumbling in from the other room and sat himself across from Ennis. They talked money with a kind of coarse, pragmatic civility and agreed on an amount—not a lot, since he was also getting room and board, and less than his last job, but a whole hell of a lot better than nothing.

Jack came back down, leaned in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. He ran a hand through his hair. “Bobby's down. Despite my mama's teasin', Ennis, you're gonna be on the couch 'less you feel like sharin' a room with a three year old.”

“I'm fine on the couch.”

Sue set Ennis up with a pillow and a couple blankets and the household went to bed. Jack clapped Ennis on the shoulder before he headed upstairs, let his touch and his gaze linger though neither were returned.

Alone, in the dark, Ennis stared at the ceiling a long time before he fell asleep.


	14. Where on Earth is Lightning Flat?

In the morning it was coffee and toast, out to do first light chores with Jack showing Ennis the ropes and John telling them both they were doing it wrong every three steps, prompting Jack to snap back with things like, “Daddy, this is _exactly_ how _you_ have done this my whole damn life. Is your memory startin' to go?”

Ennis met John's two cattle dogs, pair of heeler mixes named T-bone and Porkchop, then it was breakfast proper and meeting Collin and Samantha. Collin shook Ennis's hand upon being introduced and said, “Now, 'Del Mar,' that's Spanish—your folks come up from Mexico or some place?”

“Uh,” Ennis shrugged, “I have no idea. Musta done, I guess, name's gotta come from somewhere. Um, but, no, from my grandparents we've only ever lived in Wyoming an' I dunno 'bout anythin' 'fore that.”

Collin nodded. “Alright then.”

Samantha took a mug of coffee from Sue and splashed milk in it. “Guess we're gonna have to introduce your horses to the locals, huh, Mr. Del Mar?”

“Me an' him can do that,” Jack said. “Then, I figure—Ennis, we oughta head into town, I can show you around, introduce you to some folks, an' you can use the phone at the store to tell the mother of your children that you're no longer homeless.”

“Yeah, I should do that...” Ennis muttered his agreement.

Introducing the horses went relatively well—bit of posturing and kicking from Zeus that Pickles wasn't too shy to return. Didn't look like it was going to get too aggressive though, so they'd be fine once they all got used to each other.

Then, “I can follow you!”

“There is no damn point in both of us using the gas. Get in my truck, Ennis.”

“I—”

“You really don't wanna turn this into a fight, friend.”

“Alright, alright, goddamnit, Jack.”

Ennis hunched up in the passenger seat, arms crossed, while Jack turned over the engine and pulled around to head up the driveway to what passed for the main road. As he made that first turn toward town, Jack glanced over at Ennis. “What's your problem?”

“Nothin'.”

“It's clearly somethin'.”

Ennis shook his head.

Jack rolled his eyes. “You are not a very good liar, darlin'.”

“Shut up.”

“I was under the impression you _liked_ —”

“I said shut up.”

Jack looked over at him again. “There's nobody else in this truck, Ennis.”

“It occur to you that maybe _I_ don't wanna hear it?”

“I don't believe that for a second,” Jack said calmly. “I believe you're scared of all the worst case scenarios to seem so good at imaginin' and don't wanna watch the dominos fall that you think might get knocked over by—what? _A_ word? Us gettin' too comfortable or some shit?—but I know for a fact that no matter how damn skittish you can be about it, you like bein' around me, you like bein' alone with me, and you like me actin' like I like you too.”

Ennis _hmph_ ed.

Jack sighed. “Nobody is gonna think anythin' of us ridin' into town together. It's _efficient_ , that's it. Can't even begin to count how many times I've made the same trip with Collin or Mark, or them with each other.”

For a minute, Ennis just glared out the window, then he let out a breath and didn't uncross his arms but his shoulders loosened. “Where's he live, anyway? Collin, I mean.”

“Right on the edge a town. I'll point it out when we pass it.”

Collin's house was a once-bright green that had faded to a weird kind of olive. A lot of the rest of town was faded too, the desaturated ghosts of what had been jewel tones and Easter egg brights when the paintjobs were new sometime around when Jack and Ennis were born, maybe earlier. At least all the unpainted brick was still brick-colored.

Jack pointed out the bank, the post office, the tiny little schoolhouse, the pentecostal church his family belonged to, the other church, the bar, most every building in the three street town, naming along with them who lived and worked there as if Ennis was going to remember it all, until they got to the general store and its neighboring gas station, the only one in town.

“Also,” Jack said as he cut the engine, “ _technically_ , this is the town of Rockypoint, but any mail addressed to Lightning Flat ends up here.”

Ennis looked at him sideways. “If this is Rockypoint, then where the hell is Lightning Flat?”

“This whole patch a prairie is Lightning Flat, but the actual _town_ of Lightning Flat hasn't existed since my parents were kids, so now 'town' is either here, or Ridge, Montana, but Ridge is a farther drive from my family's place.”

“Fair 'nough,” Ennis sighed and got out of the truck.

Jack led the way into the store. A stocky, matronly woman at the counter smiled broadly as they came in. “Hey, there, Jack. Good to see you. And this must be your friend—Ennis, right?”

“That's right,” Jack agreed. “Ennis, this is Miss Sandra. She knows everybody in a twenty mile radius and just about all the gossip, but she benevolently doesn't go sharing it.”

Sandra laughed. “That's right! Best way to get to know things is make sure everybody trusts you with their secrets.” She shrugged. “Second best way is to let everybody use your phone.”

“On which note,” Jack clapped Ennis's shoulder and gave him a meaningful look.

“I, uh, I got a call to make,” Ennis mumbled, glancing up from the floor to Sandra for just a moment.

“Be my guest.” She gestured over to the phone mounted to the wall in the corner.

“Thanks.” Ennis nodded once. He went to the phone while Jack leaned casually on the counter to chat with Sandra, took a breath, and dialed. It rang a few times before the line picked up.

“Lewis residence.”

“Hey, Barbara. It's Ennis—I need to talk to Alma 'bout somethin'.”

“Oh.” Barbara's voice went flat with distaste. “Hang on, I'll get her.”

Ennis chewed his thumbnail while he waited.

“Ennis?” Alma said.

“Hey. Uh. I found a job. And a place to stay.”

“Oh! That went a lot faster than I expected,” Alma said in a rush of breath. “Where? What's the job?”

“'Nother cattle ranch. Up in Lightning Flat this time.”

There was a pause. “Where on Earth is Lightning Flat?”

“Northwest corner a the state, just about in Montana.”

“Ennis, that's so far away!”

“I know, it's probably six, seven hours from Riverton.”

“How exactly do you plan on seeing the girls from seven hours away?”

“I'll drive!”

“Fourteen hours in a weekend with a kindergartener and a toddler?”

“I'll figure somethin' out.”

Alma sighed a burst of static. “How did you even land up there?”

Ennis shut his eyes, leaned his forehead on his fist on the wall. “Jack grew up here.”

“...Twist?”

“I really only know the one.”

“Did he,” she took a breath, “get you a job?”

“Yeah. It's, uh, it's his folks' ranch. He just moved back here from Texas since getting' divorced.”

It took her a moment to speak again. “Did you _move in_ with him?”

Ennis dug his nails into his palm. “Uh, sorta. He—wanted to make sure I'd be able to provide for my girls.”

A longer pause this time, then quietly, “That was good a him.”

Ennis turned to look over his shoulder to where Jack was sniffing skeptically at a bottle of something Sandra had handed him. “He's a good fella.” Ennis chewed his cheek. “A good friend.”

“I know,” Alma breathed. There was a faint tapping sound he was pretty sure was her fingernails on the body of the phone. “Maybe, while Junior's not in school...I'll think about lettin' you have the girls for a week in place of a couple weekends. Just to let things go longer without trappin' them in your truck all day.”

“I'd appreciate that.”

“I'll think about it.”

Once Ennis was done with his call, Jack bought a handful of things from Sandra, including a pack of the aggressively potent ginger ale she'd had him try, and the two men headed back to the Twist ranch. Ennis spent about half the ride staring out the window, hands fidgeting in his lap—spent the second half with one hand on Jack's leg, never quit staring at the shortgrass prairie to see the smile on Jack's face.


	15. Privacy

The next day when the men came in from working, Sue was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, hand on her hip, scowling thoughtfully at the sofa.

“Soup's on the stove,” she said, then shook her head and huffed a breath. “I have been all over this house and I just don't know where we're gonna fit another bed in here without givin' up either the livin' room or my work room entirely. Best thing to do, I guess, would be move the sewin' machine and all that in here, make the work room into a bedroom—it's such a little room though. Might be better to move Bobby in there, try to shove a second twin bed up in your room, Jack, but that room's not that much bigger.” She ran a hand over her face, shook her head again, turned into the kitchen, started getting down bowls. “We might need to figure out somethin' else.”

“I'm okay on the couch,” Ennis said.

“Not indefinitely you're not.” She stuck her head out the back door to the garden. “Sammy, Bobby, come on in an' eat.”

The two kids came in, Samantha hoisted Bobby up onto the counter next to the sink so they could wash up.

“Your granma putting you to work, huh?” John asked, ruffling Bobby's hair.

Bobby nodded. “Pullin' weeds!”

“And he's good at it,” Samantha said.

“Yup!” Bobby confirmed proudly.

Over dinner, they talked through and discarded several potential paths forward for getting Ennis someplace better to sleep.

“Maybe,” Jack said carefully, fiddling with his spoon, “the thing to do is build a whole 'nother house.

“You're jokin', right?” John said.

“No. I got some money, we've got the land.” Jack shrugged. “Always kinda figured I'd build myself a house on the property at some point.”

“That seems like a little much, Jack,” Ennis mumbled.

“Between everybody at this table, I know we can do it,” Jack gestured around. “Even Bobby'd be a big help, I'm sure—won't ya, bud?”

Bobby looked up from the dregs of his dinner and nodded, drop of soup dribbling down his chin.

“Samantha,” Sue said, “can you and Bobby take one of the baskets from that cabinet and go get some cherries? I think I'll make some cobbler in the morning.”

Samantha locked eyes intensely with Sue, one eyebrow arched challengingly, but she got up breezily, said, “Sure, c'mon Bobby,” put both their dishes by the sink, grabbed a basket, and went out back hand in hand with Bobby to the pair of cherrie trees at the edge of the yard.

“That was not subtle, Mama,” Jack said.

“It's a bad idea, Jack.” Sue folded her hands on the table.

Jack slowly sat back in his chair. “Why? Why shouldn't I build a home where my family's been half a century and raise my son there?”

Ennis and Collin both got _real_ interested in their soup.

“Cuz there's no _future_ here,” John said sternly, “so it don't matter what kinda history there is.”

“We watched the town we grew up in wither away to nothin',” Sue said gently, nodding between herself and John. “Rockypoint is hangin' on by the skin of its teeth. More folks are movin' away or dyin' than are movin' in or bein' born. Now, it might last long enough for _you_ to have a life here, but it won't be for your son.”

“It'd be real dumb to pour all your money and time into buildin' somethin' here,” John concluded. “Was pretty sure you were smarter than that.”

Jack set his jaw.

“I just about moved out of town so Samantha could go to high school easier,” Collin said, looking over at Jack. “Main thing keepin' me here is it wasn't lookin' good for me getting' a job in Sundance. Luckily, Sammy's the right kind of stubborn to drive almost four hours round trip every day during the school year. You an' me both gave that up real quick.”

“An' it's just gettin' harder to find work if you ain't got a diploma,” Ennis told the tabletop.

Jack propped his elbow on the table, ran his hand over his face. “So,” he sighed, “for Bobby to have decent prospects when he's grown, we gotta move away from here 'fore he hits high school.”

“Mhm.” Sue got up, came around to rub her son's shoulder. “So save your money, put it toward building you a home somewhere more lively in a few years. In the meantime, we will figure out _something_ for Ennis.”

Jack nodded, pushed his bowl away.

~*~

Over the next few days, the routine of things at the Twist ranch and Ennis both adjusted to each other. The horses started to settle in better, too.

Saturday night, long after the household had turned in for the night, footsteps creaked down the stairs in the dark.

“Ennis?” Jack's voice whispered. “You awake?”

“Yeah,” Ennis grumbled back.

“Put'yer boots on, come have a smoke with me.”

They wound up sitting on the paddock fence in their pajamas and boots, sharing a cigaret, the wind off the prairie ruffling their hair.

Ennis exhaled smoke. “So, what's keeping you up?”

Jack shrugged, took the cigaret. “Been a weird week's all. You?”

“Real weird week,” Ennis agreed. “I don't think your old man likes me.”

“My daddy doesn't like anybody 'cept his wife and his grandson.”

Ennis snorted. For a long while they sat, looking across at the house, trading the cigaret back and forth til it ran out. Jack reached for Ennis's hand—Ennis pulled it away.

“It's the middle of the night,” Jack said softly, “everyone's asleep, it's dark, only window on this side a the house is to my room, the nearest neighbor's not for miles, and I figure you're goin' at least as crazy as me behavin' ourselves 'round each other.” He held out his hand. Ennis eyed it, then took it, squeezed hard.

“You're right,” he mumbled harshly. “This, this is worse than not seein' you for months an', yeah, I'm goin' outa my fuckin' mind.”

Jack squeezed back, was quiet a moment, then hopped off the fence without letting go. “C'mere.”

“What're y—”

“Just c'mere.” He pulled Ennis with him around behind the stable in a sheltered corner between it, the adjacent shed, and a couple of the windbreak trees, pushed him up against the wall, and kissed him.

“Jack—” Ennis protested breathlessly, not that he objected enough to not kiss back, fingers curling in the front of Jack's singlet.

“I grew up here,” Jack murmured between kisses. “Trust me...I know... _exactly_...where around here can't be seen from the house _or_ the road.” He kissed his way down Ennis's neck as he dropped to his knees in the scrubby grass and clover.

“What're you doin'?”

“I think that's a lil' obvious, ain't it?”

Ennis looked off at nothing in particular. “You don't hafta….”

“I want to.” Jack raked his fingers down Ennis's thighs. “Tell me you don't want me to an' I won't, but I want to. I wouldn't do this—or any of the other things you _won't_ do—if I didn't wanna.”

Ennis closed his fists against the wall behind him, chewed his cheek, didn't look at the man on his knees in front of him.

Jack sat back on his heels, let his hands fall in his own lap, ignored the quick shiver that went up his spine. “Ennis, do you want me to stop?”

Still not looking, he shook his head.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded.

“Okay.” Jack tugged Ennis's pajamas down past his hips.

Ennis shut his eyes, tried not to think, just feel—something that got easier to do with Jack's every movement. His fingers found their way into Jack's hair, not to pull or guide, just out of a want to touch. Jack rewarded the attention with a nuzzle and kiss brushed well below his navel, then resumed his enthusiastic ministrations, earning half-choked sounds of approval through Ennis's teeth.

After everything, Ennis sank down the wall and immediately regretted it as the siding pushed up his shirt and scraped unpleasantly against his back. He watched as Jack finished himself in hand with quiet curses, looked away quickly before Jack could catch his eye. They both sat, breathing hard, loud against the background chorus of crickets. Jack scrubbed his palm on the grass. Ennis fixed his clothes and Jack did the same before moving to lean against the wall next him, rested his cheek on Ennis's shoulder, didn't try to kiss him but lay his clean hand on Ennis's knee.

“We don't hafta go crazy,” he murmured. “Just gotta find our own privacy.”

Ennis nodded once.


	16. Somethin' Better Than Maybe

Sunday morning after after breakfast, Sue changed into her good shoes to go to church, asked Ennis if he'd like to come with her, took his no without argument. When she got back, she changed shoes again, walked out til she was in easy shouting distance of the men where they were working, and called, “Ennis! I think I solved the you-sleepin'-on-the-couch problem.”

He looked up distractedly. “Uh, alright!”

“I'll explain when y'all come in to eat.”

“Alright.”

She gestured with the butter knife she was using to make sandwiches while she talked. “The Mortons go road trippin' and sight seein' most every summer since they've got the time then—Mrs. Morton teaches in town and their kids are all grown and Mr. Morton made good money before they moved out here so when school's out they're more or less free to do as they please. Anyway, they've got this winnebago—well, right now they've actually got two. That's the point, they just bought a new one because their old one's been refusin' to start. They say if we can get it over here, hundred bucks an' it's ours. I figure park it 'round this side a the house—” she gestured through the wall to outside “—it'll be like addin' another room. One potential problem I can see is the barn cats _will_ be sleepin' under that thing all the time, but so long as you don't mind that, seems like the best path forward we got. Even if you do mind that it still seems like the best path forward we got.”

“I don't mind cats, but,” Ennis looked over to Jack, “we got the hundred dollars to drop on that?”

“Friend, I was full on ready to up an' build a house. That costs a helluva lot more than a hundred dollars.”

Getting the Morton's old winnebago from their house in Rockypoint to the Twist ranch turned into a three day ordeal—two days of determining that, no, it really wasn't fucking worth it to try and get the damn thing running well enough to move under its own power, then a full day of juryrigging a means to tow something that really didn't want to be towed with a truck that was barely up to towing anything that big. Over those three days, Ennis met just about the entire town, and half the neighbors in between, whether he wanted to or not, and Bobby learned at least two new cursewords so Jack—in a moment of either parental failure or excellence, depending on who you asked—sat him up in the bed of the truck to give him a lesson on when and how to use, and not use, cusses.

Sue was right about the cats, it took less than an hour for three of them that usually hung around the ranch to sprawl out under the chassis once it was up on blocks, but Ennis didn't mind them. Mrs. Morton had, apparently, painted a floral boarder all around the inside of the winnebago at some point. Ennis didn't mind that, either. Gave it some character.

That night, Ennis was just changing for bed while shoving his stuff—which had been living in the same boxes and bags he'd tossed them in to clear out from Hudson—into the cabinets and closets and overhead cubbies when there was a rattly knock at the panel aluminum door.

“'s'open,” Ennis called.

Jack's head and shoulder popped in, grinning and holding out a bottle. “Wanna beer?”

Ennis snorted with amusement. “Sure.”

Jack stepped up into the camper, a beer in each hand. He let Ennis take one, then pulled the door to and locked it, took a sip, sidled up against Ennis, crossed his wrists behind his neck.

“What're you doin'?”

“Takin' advantage a you havin' a door to close to kiss you proper for the first time in three days.” And so he did. Ennis set his beer on the nearest horizontal surface, looped his thumbs in Jack's belt.

After a moment Ennis turned his face away, leaned his cheek against Jack's. “Figure this means you got Bobby down?”

“Mhm.” Jack nuzzled a little, kissed Ennis's cheek, then stepped back, took a sip of beer, leaned against the dinette table. “Dad's gone to bed, Mama's finishing up some sewing then she's gonna do the same. Told her I was gonna come help you settle in out here.” He winked.

Ennis looked down, shrugged, kicked an empty shoebox to the side. “Mostly got my stuff dealt with. Only have so much.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed, stepped around him to pick up a paper grocery bag of clothes off the folded-out bed at the back. “I can still help you finish up. Unless you can think of something better to do with our time.”

“I, uh—maybe.”

“Maybe?” Jack laughed and shook his head. “Drink your fuckin' beer, I'll hang up the rest a your clothes, then we'll see if we can come up with somethin' better than _maybe_.”

Beer bottles empty and clothes in the closet, Jack tugged Ennis with him, walking backward til his legs hit the bed, then pulled Ennis down to tumble on top of him.

“Oof,” Jack wheezed, “not the softest mattress.”

“ _You_ just did that,” Ennis pointed out, propping himself up.

“Yeah, I did.” Jack smiled and reached up to run his fingers through Ennis's hair. “And it _is_ more forgiving than the ground, which, y'know, I—mmph!”

Ennis cut him off with a kiss, fingers fumbling between them with that same damn belt buckle. Laughing, Jack gave him a shove, sat up enough to get his shirt off, let Ennis do the same, then pulled him in by the back of the neck for another kiss.

The first discarded boot hit the floor with a thunk. They were a little more careful about the second one, cringed when the belt buckle clanged against the air conditioner vent at the bottom of the closet door—really was a damn nice camper—but that was last thing likely to be louder than a flutter so no reason to stop.

Ennis pulled away to much whined protest, grabbed one of the two towels he actually owned, came back to a roll of blue eyes and a begrudging, “Yeah, that's fair.”

Towel was rougher than the coverlet, but sure softer than grass—not that grass didn't have its own charms, far as Jack was concerned, but smushing your face gracelessly into a mattress like Jack wound up doing didn't come with the same risks of scrapes and bug bites and dust in your eyes as smushing your face into the ground. Wasn't a problem as long as your elbows didn't give out. With Ennis, it was a fifty-fifty shot and, for Jack, well worth the trade even when it meant a faceful of clover and dirt.

They lay a while, Ennis against Jack's back, 'til their breath came a little more even and they untangled, wiped up a bit, wadded the towel around the mess, tossed it aside, and settled again, Ennis held to Jack's chest now, Jack with his nose in Ennis's hair, eyes closed.

“You can't stay here,” Ennis mumbled without making any move to let Jack get up.

“I mean, I could but it _would_ raise some questions,” Jack murmured back. “Like 'what kinda fuckin' lightweights're you boys c'n get so wasted on two damn beers you can't get yer ass up to y'rown damn bed?'”

“That's not funny.”

“You laughed.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Yeah you did,” Jack chuckled. “You snorted, I felt it.” He kissed Ennis's hair and sighed. “I'll get dressed and head up in a bit, 'kay?”

“Mkay.”

Jack sighed, laced his fingers with Ennis's. “Wish I could stay. Might hafta _really_ get drunk sometime for an excuse. On our birthdays or somethin'.”

“Yeah,” Ennis breathed, then was quiet. “Jack...when the hell's yer birthday?”

Jack opened his eyes, blinked, shifted away so he could stare at Ennis. “February nineteenth. When the hell is yours?”

“November third.”

“Have we really known eachother this long without ever knowin' the other's birthday?”

Ennis's forehead scrunched. “Did I _call_ you on your birthday last year?”

Jack shook his head. “Couple days before.”

“And you didn't say shit!”

“I was juggling a sick baby.” He shook his head again, pressed his forehead to Ennis's chest. “We are such morons. Also,” he looked up, “can I just say that it's _wild_ how just, what?—year'n'a half ago? Little less—Bobby was a _baby_ an' now he's a _kid,_ he's a whole little person. How and when does that happen?”

“I have no idea,” Ennis said honestly. “Jenny's not far behind 'im, so I know how you mean.”

Jack rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling. “How old's she?”

“Just turned two on the twenty-fourth.”

He reached over to cuff clumsily at Ennis's ear. “You best be sendin' a birthday card for her along with that letter about seein' 'em.”

Ennis swatted his hand away. “I will, alright.”

“Good. But, so that makes her, uh, fuck math—” he rubbed at his forehead “—eight months younger?”

“Sounds right.”

“But...I think they're gonna end up in the same year at school, aren't they?”

“Uh.” Ennis shook his head and made a non-committal sound in his throat.

Jack sat up, frowning, and counted on his fingers a minute, muttering numbers under his breath. “I think so. Cuz they're the same age in September when the school year starts, they'll both be five for the start of the same year.”

Ennis sat up, too, absently pulled the pillow into his lap, and shrugged. “I was four when my mama put me in kindergarten at the church in town. Lots a kids with fall birthdays start at four.”

“Fuck, I don't know.” Jack ran a hand through his hair, then paused. “Wait, does that mean you were a year ahead a me in school?”

“Please stop askin' me to think about how calendars work at—what time is it?”

“Time for me to go to bed, I think,” Jack sighed. He groaned as he stood up and stretched, picked up his clothes and started putting them back on. “And Ennis?” he said softly.

“Hm?”

“I really like that you'll talk to me like this, now.” He shrugged, looked down to do up the buttons on his shirt. “ When we're...together, y'know.”

Ennis looked down at his hands and nodded quietly.

Jack shoved his feet in his boots, leaned across the bed braced on one hand, and lifted Ennis's chin to kiss him soft. “G'night.”

“Night, Jack,” Ennis mumbled back. He watched Jack walk to the door, unlock it, flash a quick fond smile back, then go, leaving Ennis alone.


End file.
